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BY
LANA PUÜMALA
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS Department of History
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
Lakehead University
Thunder Bay, Ontario
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I would like to extend the warmest heartfelt thank you to Dr. Bruce Muirhead for his guidance and understanding: without him this might have never been finished. Thank you also to Dr. Oiva Saarinen for his assistance and inspiration; Kevin for his understanding during this process; my family for their support, inspiration and understanding; and to Dr. Ernie Epp for his assistance.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents
Chapter One Introduction
Chapter Two Historiography 8
Chapter Three Finnish Immigrants in Canada 32
Chapter Four Finnish Immigrant Employment 49
Chapter Five Immigration and Assimilation 65
Chapter Six Conclusion 80
Appendices 84
Bibliography 100
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. List of Appendices
1. Immigration to Canada of People of Finnish Origin or Birth, 1900-1977 84
2. Distribution of Finns in Canada (1961) 85
3. Number of First and Second Generation Finns in Canada, 1901 -1981 86
4. Finnish Population in Canada and Six Provinces 87
5. Finnish Population in Major Cities and Relevant Ontario Districts 88
6. Finnish Population in Ontario and Relevant Cities and Districts 89
7. Population of Finnish Origin in Canada by Province in 1986 90
8. Finnish Population by Census Metropolitan Area (1996) 91
9. Canadian Government Regulation of Immigration Affecting Finnish Immigrants 92
10. Finnish-Canadian Immigrant Questionnaire 93
11. Finnish Businesses in Thunder Bay, circa 1980 95
12. Selected Finnish Enterprises/Professions in the Thunder Bay Area, circa 2002 96
13. Selected Finnish Social, Political and Economic Organizations in the Thunder Bay Area, circa 2002 97
14. Finnish Canadian Athletic Clubs in the Thunder Bay Area 98
15. Finnish Canadian Skiers from the Thunder Bay Area 99
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter One
Introduction
Throughout history the Finns have been migratory people. They were among the first Europeans to cross the seven seas.’
This migration has contributed to the Finnish population being found in many countries,
including Canada. It is this Finnish-Canadian population that is of interest here. Growing up in
the Thunder Bay area, within the Finn culture, created an atmosphere of questions that needed
to be researched and answered. Why did the family end up in Thunder Bay? Why did Finn
families before them end up here? Why did Finns come to Canada? These questions burned in
the back of the mind for years before finally emerging onto paper, in deciding to research the
Finns in the Thunder Bay region, two methodologies were implemented. The first method
utilized was the laborious task of researching through the vast materials offered in the archives
and libraries. Once the background information was organized, the way was set for dealing with
the questionnaires and interviews. By contemplating the questions that needed to be answered,
the questionnaires and interviews offered the researcher an opportunity to see the information
gathered almost on a first-hand basis.
By delving into the Finnish-Canadian experience, this research offers the opportunity to
see the motivation which drove these immigrants in their new lives. First, the research explores
the historiography of the Finnish-Canadian experience. This is done by examining the research
done on immigration in general, immigration to Canada, Finnish immigration, and finally Finnish
immigration to the Thunder Bay area. Then the research turns to the Finnish immigrants
themselves and the many reasons for coming to Canada in general and the Thunder Bay area
in particular. In Chapter Four, the research turns to the employment of these Finnish
’ Olavi Kclvukangas, “Finns Abroad,” (Institute of Migration, 1999). Accessed 7 May 2002, available from http://www.utu.fi/erill/instmiar/art/koivuk.htm.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 immigrants upon their arrival and during their lives in Canada. The final aspect of the research
is investigated within Chapter Five. The questionnaires and the interviews conducted by the
researcher are analyzed to allow the reader a glimpse into the lives of these immigrants, both
when they first arrived and after some assimilation into Canadian society. The conclusion of this
research deals with the idea that there are more aspects of the Finnish-Canadian experience
which can be examined.
THE BEGINNINGS OF FINNISH IMMIGRATION
The first Finnish settlers to arrive on the North American continent in 1641 were a part of
the Swedish attempt at colonization in New Sweden on the banks of the Delaware River.
Although there were few numbers of Finns who participated in this attempt, there were enough
for a small community to arise. However, it was not until two hundred years later that others
were attracted to the idea of immigration to the New World.
Canada was not a part of this initial contact and the land was not known to the
Scandinavians until 1749-50, when Pehr Kalm visited some of the area now known as Canada.
His travels were recorded and published in 1770 as Travels in North America.^ These travel
diaries created more interest in North America, and especially British North America, as a place
of promise for a new life.
Finnish immigration to Canada has occurred in three main waves. The first was the
influx between 1870 and 1914. Finland was then an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian
Empire and had enjoyed unusually generous freedoms, including self-government. However, as
the Pan-Slavic movement gained a stronger foothold in Russia, the Tsar became more
interested in exerting his power over all of his domain. This move towards Russification was an
^ Pehr Kalm, Travels in North America, published in London for T. Lowndes, 1771, translated J.R. Forster, FC18.C5 no. 35953 Main/N/licrofiche, CIHM no. 35953, as cited in Oiva Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Historical Geography of the Finns in the Sudbury Area (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1999), 5.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 impetus for many Finns to emigrate in search of a freer political and cultural climate. Also,
during this period, much of the arable land in Finland was already occupied; as the population
of the country increased, there were more people left without a means of economic survival. For
these Finns, emigration became the only viable alternative and North America was seen as the
land of opportunity. The boom in the railroad and lumber industries in Canada and the United
States brought many of the immigrants to settle there. Official Canadian immigration policy at
the time strongly favoured agricultural settlers and Finnish immigration was encouraged, with
the hope that Finnish immigrants would be good agricultural settlers.^ Most Finns, however, had
different ideas, becoming wage earners in industries such as those related to the forest. Still,
they provided valuable service to the Canadian economy and their immigration was
encouraged.
Finnish immigrants who decided to remain in Canada settled in a few main regions. The
Thunder Bay area was one such region because of the construction then taking place on the
Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). After the construction was finished in the area, Finns who had
taken a liking to the region^ remained and turned to the lumber industry. These Finns built
uniquely Finnish communities in the Thunder Bay region, such as the rural areas of Gorham,
Ware and Lybster and the urban blocks surrounding Bay Street in Port Arthur.® Eventually these
Finnish immigrants were instrumental in attracting more Finns to the region, through their
correspondence with friends and family in the homeland. This led new immigrants to settle in
the areas already populated with Finns.
With the outbreak of the First World War, there was a halt in Finnish immigration. Finns
® Varpu Lindstrom-Best, “The Impact of Canadian Immigration Policy on Finnish Immigration, 1890-1978,” Siirtolaisuus/Migration 2(1981); 6-7. “ See Eugene Van Cleef, “Finnish Settlement in Canada,” Geographical Review 42 (1952): 253-66 and “Finns in the United States and Canada,” Baltic and Scandinavian Countries 2, no.1 (May 1936); 35-37, Mark Rasmussen, “Finnish Settlement in Thunder Bay,” (M.A. diss.. University of Alberta, 1978) and “Finnish Settlement in Rural Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada,” Nordia 19, no.2 (1985): 73-80, and Uuno Varjo, “Development of Finnish Communities in the Vicinity of Thunder Bay, Ontario,” Nordia 19, no.2 (1985): 81-115 for further explanations. ® Mark Rasmussen, “Finnish Settlement in Thunder Bay,” 46.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 were more concerned with the problems then being experienced in Finland than with the
possibility of migrating to a new country. Not until the end of the war was there again movement
of people to foreign destinations. The second wave of immigration is defined as the period
between the end of the First World War and the Great Depression. The political situation in
Finland after the war was quite unstable. With the Russian Revolution of 1917 weakening
Russian control, the Finns took the opportunity to proclaim their independence in December
1917. No longer under Tsarist rule, they were able to develop their own government.
Bolshevik supporters within Finland, known as the Red Guards, hoped the government
would stay united with the Russian Bolshevik Soviet but were opposed by the Civil ‘White’
Guards, loyal to the cause of an independent democratic Finland. This division would be
duplicated in areas of North American Finnish settlement, like Thunder Bay. The country’s
declaration of independence was accepted by Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the new Soviet
Union on 3 January 1918, but it caused tension between the Red Guards and the leaders of
Finland and their loyal Civil Guards. A civil war broke out on 28 January 1918, and lasted five
months. This Finnish Civil War prompted many Finns, especially those sympathetic to the
socialist regime in Russia, to emigrate. While some went to the USSR, many decided to try
Canada, which is the reason why the second wave of immigration to the Dominion is often
discussed in terms of the political ideals which were espoused by these new Canadians.
In part, they came to Canada because the United States had established new
immigration laws and quotas, making it more difficult for immigrants to go there. Canada, on the
other hand, had relaxed its immigration laws again and did not restrict the quotas of people
allowed to enter the country. This was also a time when most immigrants were looking for a
way to escape the economic and political upheaval which accompanied the Finnish Civil War
and immigration to Canada offered what seemed to be a safe haven. Once these problems in
Finland had subsided, emigration, too, slowed.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 During this wave of immigration, the Finns who decided to settle in the Thunder Bay
region again favoured certain communities. The areas known as Intola, Kivikoski, Lappe,
Toimela and Sistonen’s Corner, which are located within the larger communities of Tarmola,
Pohjola, Alppila and Ostola, were the main destinations. These areas offered Finnish
immigrants a place within Canadian society which was uniquely Finnish-Canadian. Even in the
1990s, there are numerous reminders of these Finnish communities. The names of the areas
have remained, and many of the residents are second, third or even fourth generation Finnish-
Canadians.
In the five years between the end of the Second World War and the start of the third
wave of immigration in 1950-51, Finns were not included in the ‘desirable’ immigrant category,
as they were seen by all the Allies (Britain, France, the United States and, to a lesser extent,
Canada) as former enemies. During the war, the Germans had helped the Finns to thwart
Soviet expansionism; in exchange, the Finns gave German troops free passage through
Finland and the right to establish bases. Unfortunately for Finland, most governments, which
were united in the cause to defeat Germany, saw Finland as an ally of Germany, a perception
that Helsinki did not share. Instead, it saw itself merely as a co-belligerent fighting against a
common enemy, the Soviet Union, on a common front.® Be that as it may, it was not until the
Canadian economy began to expand in the early 1950’s with a concomitant demand for labour
that Finnish immigration was renewed. These postwar immigrants brought new life into existing
Finnish organizations within Canada and also in the Thunder Bay area.^ This new wave of
Finnish immigration began to decline when Canadian immigration laws were tightened between
1962 and 1967, and the Finnish economy provided more employment, having fully recovered
from the effects of the Second World War. With the economy on the upswing, the population no
® Anatole G. Mazour, Finland Between East and W/est (Toronto: D. Van Nostrand, 1956), 37. ^ Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 99.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. lon ger had as many reasons to emigrate.®
Throughout the three separate waves of immigration, from 1901 to 1960, more than
75,000 Finns immigrated to Canada and over fifty percent chose to settle in Ontario. Of the
Finnish immigrants in Ontario, roughly half settled in the Thunder Bay region.® There were
many reasons for this large settlement in Thunder Bay’®, some of which have been constant
throughout the century and some of which are unique to the time frame they are associated
with. As mentioned previously, one factor was the CPR, which brought labourers to the area.
Once these labourers were in the area and found it similar to their homeland, they encouraged
a chain migration by writing to friends and family about the attractiveness of their new homes
and, more importantly, about the availability of employment. This pull of employment to be
found in the Thunder Bay area was also in effect during the third wave, when many Finnish
immigrants found work available to them in an expanding lumber industry.
For the second and third waves, the Finns had another reason for choosing the
Lakehead region; the existence of a large Finnish community. This community could be seen as
an aid to integration into Canadian society. Throughout the years, the Finnish-Canadian
community of Thunder Bay has remained a constant for immigrants to rely upon in order to
adjust to their new home. In Finland, they use the word 'sisu' to describe the strong will of the
Finns to live their lives as free and independent people, in Canada, ‘sisi/ can be used to explain
how the Finnish immigrants chose to develop the rugged rural lands which other ethnic groups
had passed over and could also be used to explain why many rural Finns fought to maintain
their culture and traditions.” There were likewise many groups and associations which these
® Department of the Secretary of State - Multiculturalism Directorate, The Canadian Famiiy Tree: Canada’s Peoples (Toronto: Corpus Information Services, 1979), 82. ® Jouni Korkiasaari, “Immigration to Canada of People of Finnish Origin or Birth, 1900-1977,” (Institute of Migration, 1998). Accessed 7 October 2002, available from http://www.utu.fi/erill/instmigr/eng/e_canad3.htm and also Rasmussen, “Finnish Settlement in Thunder Bay,” Table No.4,40. ’° For the purposes of this project, the twin cities of Port Arthur and Fort William will be labelled as Thunder Bay’, which they amalgamated into in 1970. This is to lessen any confusion which might occur. ” Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 14.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 Finns could join and begin the adaptation to life in Canada. One of these associations, the
Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society, has done academic research regarding the
history of the Finnish immigrant experience. In the Thunder Bay region, most of the research
done related to the first two waves of immigration whereas not much has been attempted on
the third. This thesis is an attempt to fill that lacuna.
As is the case in other ethnic immigration studies, many researchers are second or third
generation ethnics who have become interested in their roots. Perhaps it is their place to
research where they have come from and to understand their parents’ or grandparents’ motives
for beginning a new life in a new world. These are some of the reasons behind this current
effort. The author wishes to understand the Canada which her father and his family moved to
after the Second World War.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter Two
Historiography
The historiography of Finnish immigration to Canada deals primarily with the political
actions and thoughts of the immigrants. As well, a second common theme deals with the
factors which brought the Finns to North America and their adaptation to North American
society. Much of this work deals with the immigrant population in the United States, especially in
Delaware, Michigan, and Minnesota. There is, however, much literature which deals with
Finnish-Canadian immigrants and their experience of, and adaptation to, Canadian culture. For
example, Hilkka Aaltonen’s Books in English on Finland provides a general introduction for any
topic dealing with Finland.’® There are sections on early Finnish history, Finland through the
ages and topics dealing with Finns who have migrated elsewhere, such as to Canada and the
United States. An article highlighted by Aaltonen, which is important to the study of Finnish-
Canadians, is Edward W. Laine’s “Archival Resources Relating to Finnish Canadians,” which
appeared in the Winter 1978 edition of Archivarla.^^ Laine briefly points out the major
collections of use to the researcher of Finnish-Canadian issues, the most important of which
are to be found in the Lakehead University Library, which also holds the Finlandia Club
collection.’” Another article by Laine, which explains the development and history of the Finnish-
Canadian archives, is ‘“Kallista Perintôâ- Precious Legacy!’: Finnish-Canadian Archives, 1882-
1985.’” ® Laine explains how the archives were started:
[T]he immigrant Finns brought with them a well-defined awareness of a native Finnish archival tradition, one which can be traced back at least to the fifteenth century. In addition, they had an acute sense of self-identity as a people and, as well, a remarkable degree of historical
’® Hilkka Aaltonen, Books in Engiish on Finland {Turku: 1964). Edward W. Laine, “Archival Resources Relating to Finnish Canadians,” Archivaria7 (Winter 1978). ’” Ibid., 115. ’® Edward W. Laine, ‘“Kallista Perintôâ- Precious Legacy!’; Finnish-Canadian Archives, 1882-1985,” Archivaria22 (Summer 1986).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. consciousness concerning their past and present in both individual and communal terms, elements of which were to become further accentuated in the course of their settlement here. They also possessed a high rate of literacy and great respect for the written word. Finally, they had great desire and capacity for organization...’®
This article gives examples of what one finds in Finnish-Canadian archival sources; personal
papers, corporate records, newspapers, and the records of Finnish organizations.
Another work by Laine, an annotated bibliography. Archival Sources for the Study of
Finnish Canadians, briefly introduces the sources available at the National Archives of Canada
located in Ottawa’^ Archival Sources gives the researcher an idea of what each collection of
documents includes. As well. Laine lists other sources found at the Archives, such as
photographs, government documentation, and interview tapes. Sources at other institutions in
Canada, Finland, and the United States are also briefly described. Perhaps the best part of this
work from a researcher’s point of view is the bibliographic entries dealing with Finnish-Canadian
history, starting with archival research tools and progressing through books, articles,
newspapers, dissertations, and unpublished works. Another such guide is the work entitled, On
The Archival Heritage of the Finnish Canadian Working-Class Movement.’® These guides are
important to the culture of Finnish-Canadians as well as their study as they show the researcher
how to organize, arrange, and begin the search for appropriate documentation.
A more recent historiographic source is “Searching for North American Finnishness;
Historiography of Finnforums l-IV” by A. William Hoglund.’® This article details the results of
conferences known as the ‘Finnforums,’ which, since 1974, have invited researchers in Finnish-
Canadian and Finnish-American topics to present and discuss their findings with others. From
’® Ibid., 75. Edward W. Laine, Archival Sources for the Study of Finnish Canadians (Ottawa: National Archives of Canada, 1989). ’® Edward W. Laine, On The Archival Heritage of the Finnish Canadian Working-Class Movement (A Researcher’s Guide and Inventory to the Finnish Organization of Canada Collection at the National Archives of Canada) Research Report no.5 (Turku: Institute of Migration, 1987). ’® William A. Hoglund, “Searching for North American Finnishness: Historiography of Finnforums l-IV,” Journal of Finnish Studies 1, no.3 (December 1997): 10-18.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 this article, new avenues are opened up for the researcher; not only has Hoglund given a
summary of what is currently in the forefront of Finnish-Canadian research, but he also offers
new ideas and avenues for research.
As a background to the study of Finnish immigration to the Thunder Bay area, a general
knowledge of the history of Finland is essential. One source for this information is A History of
Finland by Eino Jutikkala and Kauko Pirinen.®® These two authors offer the reader an in-depth
look at the history of the country, from Swedish rule through its period in the Russian sphere to
its independence in 1917 and ending with the decade after the Second World War. Each of the
ten chapters deals with a period during which Finland was in transition, whether economic,
political or social. This book sets out the challenges within the political arena and presents them
in such a way that it is easy to understand why the Finns would want to emigrate at certain
times. Since it was written by two Finns, the bias is toward the inevitable establishment of an
autonomous and independent Finland.
There are several books which deal with Finland’s political history, especially with the
country in the Swedish and Russian empires. Linked with that discussion is the rationale behind
Finnish immigration, as Finns sought political freedom elsewhere. For example, Fred Singleton
in A Short History of Finland, Anatole Mazour’s Finland Between East and West, and L.A.
Puntila’s The Political History of Finland, 1809-196&^ all deal with variations of these themes
and the achievement of independence in 1917. Similarly, they address Finnish activity in the
Second World War and the reasons behind Finnish emigration in the post-1945 period.
®® Eino Jutikkala and Kauko Pirinen,A History of Finland, rev.ed., trans. Paul Sjôblom (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974). ®’ Fred Singleton, A Short History of Finland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), Anatole G. Mazour, Finland Between East and West (Toronto: D. Van Nostrand Co. (Canada) Inc., 1956), and L.A. Puntila, The Political History of Finland, 1809-1966, trans. David Miller (Helsinki: Otava Publishing Co., 1974).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11 IMMIGRATION TO CANADA
The reasons for immigration to Canada during the twentieth century must be understood
if the Finnish immigration movement is to be put in context. There are numerous sources on
immigration to Canada; this is a subject that has been well-covered by historians. Writing about
immigration was a popular topic at the turn of the twentieth century.®® For example, J.R. Conn
pointed to the ‘undesirability’ of certain types of immigrant,®® as did Walter James Brown. ®”
Supporters of immigration were relatively rare and J.S. Woodsworth’s contributions to the
literature stand out on that account. ®®
More modern literature on immigration emphasizes different aspects of the movement.
Donald Avery explains why certain ethnic immigrants were seen by employers as undesirable
and how these immigrant workers attempted to deal with unfair working conditions. In
“Dangerous Foreigners”: European Immigrant Workers and Labour Radicalism In Canada,
1896-1932,^ Avery surveys the effect that immigrant workers had on the economy and how this
in turn affected the treatment of the workers, which was generally unfair, with a low wages, an
unsafe working environment and unsanitary and cramped conditions in places like lumber
camps.®^ These factors contributed to workers having to look out for their own welfare. This
attitude was transformed into radical action, including unionization, strikes, political action, and
labour radicalism. The Finns were regarded as leaders in this movement for better conditions
and hence were seen by employers and government as undesirable immigrants. This coincided
®® See Howard Palmer, ed., Immigration and the Rise of Muiticulturalism, (Toronto: Copp Clark Publishing Ltd., 1975) for more detailed information on the immigration question. This collection of articles and essays consists of arguments from both the pro- and anti-immigration sides of the question. ®® J.R. Conn, “Immigration,” Queen’s Quarterly 8, no.2 (October 1900):117-31. ®” Waiter James Brown, “Immigration and Agriculture,” The University M agazinelZ (April 1914): 22-34. ®® J.S. Woodsworth, “Some Aspects of Immigration,” The University Magazine 13 (April 1914): 186-93. This article is placed in the back of the journal while the Brown article is near the beginning, which begs the question as to whether the editors of the journal gave Brown’s anti-immigration view more prominence than Woodsworth’s pro-immigration view. For a more detaiied expression of Woodsworth’s view, refer to J.S. Woodsworth, Strangers Within Qur Gates, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972). ®® Donald Avery, “Dangerous Foreigners”: European Immigrant Workers and Labour Radicalism in Canada, 7596-1932 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979). ®" Ibid., 36.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 with the Finnish radicalism of the First World War. In 1919, Canadian government policy was
such that “immigration from Finland was being discouraged because ‘a number of Finnish
people seem to be very busy spreading International Workers of the World propaganda and
occasionally one is found doing something worse.’”®®
Political scientist Reginald Whitaker adopts a similar point of view in his study of
immigration, Double Standard: The Secret History of Canadian Immigration.^^ He shows the
inconsistencies in Canada’s immigration policy as to who was accepted and who was not. His
analysis certainly fits Finnish immigrants:
The Canadian state has erected a detailed framework of ideological and political criteria for selection and exclusion. It has insisted that it wishes to keep out certain ideas and certain beliefs, just as it wishes to keep out certain germs and contagious diseases. Canada has been at one and the same time the land of freedom, a peaceful refuge from the storms of oppression and persecution, and a country that, out of extreme fear of totalitarianism, enacts what must be termed quasi-totalitarian controls over the entry of persons of differing political ideology and even, to the extent that this is possible, over the entry of the ideals themselves.®®
Whitaker analyzes Canadian immigration policy through the prism of the Cold War and the fight
against communism In the post-Second World War period. Those who were fleeing from
communist regimes were more likely to be allowed entry into Canada than those who were
fleeing non-communist, but dangerous, regimes. There was a period when the Finns already
living in Canada had to register with the government as enemy aliens during World War II, and
those Finns were included in the undesirable listing of possible immigrants.®’ Double Standard
provides the explanation as to why the third wave of Finnish immigration did not begin in the
®® Immigration Branch Records, 651, no.3, F.C. Blair to McFadden & McMillan Lumber Company, Fort William, August 27,1919, as cited in Avery, "Dangerous Foreigners,”92. ®® Reginald Whitaker, Double Standard: The Secret History of Canadian Immigration (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1987). ®® Ibid., 9. ®’ For the Finns becoming enemy aliens, see Varpu Lindstrom-Best, “Finns in Canada,” Polyphony: Finns in Ontario 3, no.2 (Fall 1981); 13.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 immediate aftermath of the Second World War but had to wait a few years until attitudes
towards Finns had changed.
One of the leading sources for immigration into Canada during the period after World
War II is Post-war Immigrants in Canada by Anthony H. Richmond.®® This book deals with the
‘open-door’ immigration of British citizens into Canada and how this influx affected Canadian
society and immigrants’ lives. Richmond also deals with their impact on the economy,
immigrants’ incomes and their standard of living as compared to those they had experienced
while in their homelands. As well, Richmond looks at the sociological aspect of the immigrants’
new lives within Canada; how this affected their families and their social life. He concludes with
a chapter regarding the research done on return migration to Britain.
Another source for postwar immigration into Canada is Alan Green’s Immigration and
the Postwar Canadian Economy. In this book. Green details the changing immigration policy
and the impact of the new immigrants on the economy of Canada. One of the most important
ideas articulated by Green deals with the capacity for the Canadian economy to take in the
immigrants. Explaining why immigrants, including the hardworking Finns, needed to be allowed
into Canada, he states;
A basic component in Canadian immigration policy in the postwar period, and one with firm roots in the inter-war years was the adjustment of the volume of immigrant inflow to the ‘absorptive capacity’ of the Canadian labour market. This aim was stressed by Mackenzie King in his 1947 statement, quoted earlier: “The government will seek by legislation, regulation, and vigorous administration, to insure the careful selection and permanent settlement of such numbers of immigrants as can advantageously be absorbed in our national economy.”®®
Although these works deal mainly with immigrants from other English-speaking
®® Anthony Richmond, Post-war Immigrants in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967). This analysis is cited in many of the Finnish works dealing with immigration, as an information source for immigration to Canada. ®® Alan G. Green, Immigration and the Postwar Canadian Economy (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1976), 32.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 countries, they provide the reader with an understanding of what some immigrants’ lives were
like when they came to Canada after 1945 and how they affected Canadian society. Not only is
it important for researchers to understand immigration, it is also essential for the researcher to
be familiar with the topic of integration within the new society. Green’s book, in particular,
provides the best understanding of the process of integration and assimilation.
FINNISH IMMIGRATION
Building on the sort of analysis which Richmond undertakes are two articles important to
the study of Finnish immigration to North America; these appear in The Finns in North America:
A Social Symposium.^ This book is a collection of different authors’ views on the movement of
Finns to Canada and the United States. Reino Kero’s “The Background of Finnish Emigration”
asserts that “any examination of the factors influencing Finnish emigration to America must
determine what motivated so many citizens of certain areas to seek a new homeland in
America.”®® Some of these factors, as Kero saw them, were the growth of the Finnish
population, the move from the rural to the urban setting, the abundance of opportunities in
North America reported by Finns who had already immigrated there, and the turbulent political
situation in Finland. These pushes and pulls sent many Finns to North America in order to
improve their lives.
Kero noted the influence that letters from immigrant Finns to their relatives had in
persuading them to emigrate. Some of these gave a wonderful view of ideal conditions in North
America:
The area is exceedingly fertile....I have never seen such large apples as I have seen here. They also grow numerous kinds of fruit, which I have never seen in Finland....Last year
®” Ralph J. Jalkanen, ed.The Finns in North America: A Social Symposium (Hancock, Michigan: Michigan State University Press for Suomi College, 1969). ®® Reino Kero, “The Background of Finnish Emigration,” in The Finns in North America: A Social Symposium, ed. Jalkanen, 55.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 it was possible to buy these farms cheaply, but now when we have asked about the prices, they have risen by about twenty percent. But, in any case, you can still purchase an exceedingly good farm of 80-100 acres for from $2000-3000 ... It is not worth your while to stay in Finland....You know here we govern ourselves....The government, you know, favors Finnish immigration.®®
Many such letters were written by Finnish immigrants enticing their friends and relatives
to immigrate. Tauri Aaltio followed Kero’s work in the article “A Survey of Emigration from
Finland to the United States and Canada.” Using the research begun by Kero, Aaltio described
when and where the majority of Finnish immigrants settled. Most of the article deals with the
United States, but Aaltio considered Canada as well. As he notes, many immigrant Finns
encouraged other Finns to immigrate and Aaltio saw this as the reason for large settlements of
Finns in certain areas; “New conditions, unfamiliar customs, a strange language, and
homesickness were among the many factors causing them to seek the company of other
Finnish immigrants, which in turn led to the formation of several ‘Finnish’ communities in the
United States.”®’' Aaltio concluded his article with a few brief paragraphs on the emigration
movement to Canada and two major differences from the movement to the United States. The
later start date and the higher numbers of Finnish immigrants into Canada allowed that country
to “retain an intensity and variety no longer seen in the Finnish areas of the United States.”®®
A geographer, Eugene Van Cleef, also dealt with Finnish settlements within North
America. “Finns in the United States and Canada,” dealt with the emigration and distribution of
the Finns in the United States and made comparisons with the Finns in Canada.®® Van Cleef
asserted that “The pattern of Finnish settlement in Canada resembles that in the United
®® Ibid., 61. The letter is from an American immigrant who was residing in Kaleva, Michigan. ^ Tauri Aaltio, “A Survey of Emigration from Finland to the United States and Canada,” inThe Finns in North America: A Social Symposium, ed. Jalkanen, 66. ®® Ibid., 69. ®® Eugene Van Cleef, “Finns in the United States and Canada,” Baltic and Scandinavian Countries no.12, (May 1936): 35-37.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16 States.””® In another article, “Finnish Settlement in Canada,” he expanded on the pattern of this
settlement. Van Cleef described the physical geography of Canada, with emphasis on the areas
in which the Finns settled. In his analysis, the reasons why the settlers immigrated was for
employment, in particular with the railways. He then described the regions in which the Finns
settled in relation to economic and physical geographic factors. The major areas of Finnish
settlement were the Vancouver-Victoria region,”’ the area between Edmonton and Calgary, the
“middle transition” region of eastern and southeastern Alberta and Saskatchewan, around Lake
Superior, and in the Toronto-Hamilton area. He concludes by noting the success of Finnish
immigrants, while also indulging in some ‘ethnicist’ commentary;
The Finns in Canada have been successful trail blazers and capable frontiersmen. They have demonstrated here, as in the United States, that in occupying and taming wild new country, geographically similar to their native land, they have no peers. Their occupance of lands that are “like home” illustrates concretely the critical importance, in any land settlement, of careful selection, and encouragement by those responsible, of peoples whose original habitat has many characteristics in common with the region to be developed.”®
Appearing in the nineteenth volume of Nordia was Uuno Varjo’s “Development of
Finnish Communities in the Vicinity of Thunder Bay, Ontario.””® This article provides the reader
with the social and economic background of Finnish settlements in the Thunder Bay area as
well as their history. Varjo began by giving the background of the immigration movement and
why the area was chosen by the Finns. He also explains, in greater detail than did Van Cleef,
the geographical impetus behind Finns settling in Thunder Bay. Varjo made a direct link
between the availability of farmland and the willingness of Finns to locate in the area. By the
”® Eugene Van Cleef, “Finnish Settlement in Canada”, Geographical Review42 (1952): 253. ”’ It is supposed that the Finns in the Vancouver-Victoria region settled there as early as the 1840s and had come from Russian Alaska. These were probably joined by more Finns from that area when Russia sold Alaska to the United States. Mika Roinila, “Finland-Swedes of British Columbia,”Journal of Finnish Studies4, no.1 (May 2000): 21. ”® Ibid., 266. ”® Uuno Varjo, “Development of Finnish Communities in the Vicinity of Thunder Bay, Ontario,” Nordia 19, no.2 (1985): 81-113.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 1950s, however, Finnish immigrants were no longer being pulled to the area for the farmland,
as most of the best land had already been sold and there was less available. He observed that
“many of the people referred to as farmers in the area should really be termed ‘rural residents,’
since they use their fields for growing a small range of crops, mainly just hay, potatoes and root
vegetables, and these mostly for their own consumption.”””
Varjo also detailed the Finnish organizations which sprang up within the area because of
the immigrants. These organizations are grouped into two ideological factions, the “Church
Finns” and the “Hall Finns.””® The “Church Finns” are those immigrants who were affiliated with
and spent a great deal of time with the Lutheran Church, and the “Hall Finns” were those who
spent their time and energy affiliated with organizations which met in certain halls within the
community. The Church and the Hall became the social alternatives for the Finns, depending
on their political outlook. The social sphere also included the schools and co-operative
movements, and Varjo explained the relevance of both to the Finnish community. Since this
article was dealing with the development of the Finnish communities, the conclusion sums up
whether or not the Finnish settlements as communities were based on an ethnic culture and
geography or, as Varjo states, social geographical communities.”® Varjo concluded that the
beginning of the immigrant movement saw the settlements as communities unto themselves but
that, by the 1950’s, these communities were no longer so closely knit:
although many Finns live in the old villages in the vicinity of Thunder Bay, they no longer adhere as communities. Farming is no longer economically feasible, and the descendants of the pioneers have left for more profitable jobs in Thunder Bay. With the dissolution of the old, closely-knit farming community, there no longer seems to be much of a bond between the residents of the villages. What were once active,
”” Ibid., 100. 45 Ibid., 101. He mentions as his sources for this separation, Robert F. Harney “Preface,” Polyphony: Finns in Ontario 3, no.2 (1981): 1 -2, and Yrjo Raivio, Kanadan suomaiaisten historia (Copper I Cliff, ON: Canadan Suomalainen Historiaseura, 1975). ”® Varjo, 109.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 supportive entities are now only geographical locations for people of Finnish extraction.”’'
Oiva Saarinen’s “Geographical Perspectives on Finnish Canadian Immigration and
Settlement” looks at immigration from a geographical standpoint in order to account for the
distribution of Finns in the different regions of Canada.”® According to Saarinen, who used
information from the 1951 Census of Canada, 67 percent of immigrant Finns settled in
Ontario.”® Like Van Cleef, Saarinen concludes that the Finns settled in areas which were
geographically similar to Finland and tended to form communities which attracted more Finnish
immigrants to the area.
Saarinen also published a short article, “Perspectives on Finnish Settlement in Canada,”
in the journal Siirtolaisuus-Migration. Here, he detailed briefly the relationships between the
numbers in the Canadian censuses and the actual facts which are shown through those
numbers.®® Saarinen explored the background of the three waves of immigration, as well as
what can be observed through the numbers. He took the statistics and deduced eight
conclusions regarding age, gender, language, and religion, providing the reader with the basics
of Finnish settlement In Canada from 1901 to 1991. He concluded that, “According to one
recent government publication, this data can be used to support the contention that the Finns in
Canada ‘may in fact be becoming more aware of their origins than ever before’. This conclusion
is pertinent from a policy framework as it suggests that there remains fertile ground both for the
on-going promotion of the Finnish heritage in Canada and for the continued fostering of ethnic
linkages with Finland.”®’
As a more recent and valuable addition to the historiography of the Finnish immigrant
Ibid., 111. ”® Oiva Saarinen, “Geographical Perspectives on Finnish Canadian Immigration and Settlement,” Polyphony: Finns in Ontario 3, no.2 (Fall 1981): 16-22. ”® Ibid., 20. ®® Oiva Saarinen, “Perspectives on Finnish Settlement in Canada,” Siirtoiaisuus-Migration 3 (1995): 19-25. ®’ Ibid., 25.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 experience, Oiva Saarinen’s Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Historical Geography of the
Finns in the Sudbury Area offers researchers a more detailed examination of the Finnish
phenomena within one district which spans the wide time period of the immigration movement.
Using his expertise as a geographer, Saarinen has taken his previous studies and enriched
them with more information of the immigrant’s social, economic and cultural experiences. Many
of these have been taken from personal interviews with Finnish immigrants and their
descendants. This new book, published in 1999, has provided the framework for researchers
writing of the Finnish immigrant experience in other regions. As Saarinen stated in his
Introduction, “it is hoped that this book will serve as a useful framework for comparable studies
involving other ethnic groups in North America.”®®
Varpu Lindstrom-Best has written a number of articles and books on Finns. For
example, her The Finnish Immigrant Community of Toronto, 1887-1913, published by the
Multicultural Historical Society of Ontario as part of the ‘Occasional Papers in Ethnic and
Immigration Studies’ series in 1979 laid the basis for much of her later work.®® This included
The Finns In Canada, part of the Canada’s Ethnic Group Series of the Canadian Historical
Association. Here, Lindstrom-Best provides the reader with a basic knowledge of the Finnish
immigrant experience. As others have also pointed out, she notes that “Although the Finns have
never comprised more than half of one percent of the Canadian population, they increased their
visibility in this country by settling in clusters, concentrating in a few occupations and actively
participating in Canadian politics. Unlike most other immigrants, the Finns were able to tolerate
the rugged frontier conditions and pragmatically chose them, even when the Canadian
government was strongly encouraging prairie settlement.”®”
This piece was followed by an article in Polyphony: The Finns In Ontario, entitled “The
®® Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 2. ®® Varpu Lindstrom-Best, The Finnish Immigrant Community of Toronto, 1887-1913 (Toronto: The Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1979). ®” Ibid., 17.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 Finnish Immigrant Community of Toronto, 1887-1913.” It briefly examined Finnish immigration
to Toronto during the period before the First World War. Lindstrom-Best provided a more
complete analysis of Finns in Toronto by analyzing the community in Polyphony: Toronto’s
People. Generally, her research has focused on how Finnish communities were built, how they
were perceived by others, and how they evolved over time. Certainly that was her perspective in
her doctoral dissertation, which focused on the female part of the Finnish community, “Defiant
Sisters: A Social History of the Finnish Immigrant Women in Canada, 1890-1930,” and the book
of the same name which followed. ®® She includes here a particularly unsettling, yet not
uncommon, practice followed by Finnish women (and men) - suicide.®® “The act of taking one’s
own life in Finland [was] seen by many as a private decision, an ultimate act of
independence.”®’' Oddly, Lindstrom-Best suggests that hanging, as opposed to other forms of
suicide, was seen as a final courtesy:
Outside of Port Arthur there was a famous tree called “the last stop” because that’s where the Finns hanged themselves. It seemed that almost every week someone was dangling there from his neck. They were considerate, you know, if somebody was missing you knew where to look first. It was much more difficult to go to the forest and find the pieces of those who shot themselves - wild animals often got to them first. But when you know one is hanging from a tree branch, this isn’t such a problem ....Life was so rough, unemployment, hunger churning in the stomach, lonely men, not even money to go back to Finland. You can see why they would choose to kill themselves...when you are a foreigner your life isn’t worth a damn, and soon you start to believe it too.®®
®® See Varpu Lindstrom-Best, Defiant Sisters: A Social History of Finnish Immigrant Women in Canada (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1988). The original thesis was Varpu Lindstrom-Best, “Defiant Sisters; A Social History of the Finnish Immigrant Women in Canada, 1890-1930” (Ph.D. diss., York University, 1986). ®® In her more recent article, Lindstrom states that “information garnered from Finnish newspapers reveals that Finns were four times more likely than the average in Canada to commit suicide...Causes for men’s suicides reported in the newspapers included hunger, loneliness, alcoholism and madness...In contrast, women who committed suicide were...caused by shame or a sense of desperation.” Varpu Lindstrom, “Ethnocentricity and Taboos: Untouched Themes in Finnish Canadian Social History,” Journal of Finnish Studies 1, no.3 (December 1997), 42. ®" Ibid., 51. ®® Ibid., 51-52.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 In Defiant Sisters, Lindstrom-Best also discusses the reasons why single Finnish women
immigrated to Canada (more Finnish men than women in Canada meant finding a husband was
easier), as well as the work they did here, their religious affiliations, and their organizational
abilities. In particular, the author focuses on socialist organizations and women’s roles in them.
They were seen by women as being, not only political, but also as social and educational
institutions: “[t]hus Finnish women who joined the socialist organizations did so for a multitude
of reasons, political activism being just one important part of the whole.”®®
A more recent article by Lindstrom appeared in the special issue of the Journal of
Finnish Studies, December 1997. This issue was dedicated to the publication of the papers
presented at FinnForum V held in Sudbury in May 1996. Lindstrom’s article, “Ethnocentricity
and Taboos: Untouched Themes in Finnish Canadian Social History”, looks at the current state
of Finnish Canadian research and suggests areas and ideas for further research. She admits
that many of the researchers have a personal interest in the subject, often looking at subjects
relating to their personal heritage.®® Areas which she targets as desirable for further research
are some of the religious and cultural organizations, the second and third generation Finnish
Canadians, and also themes such as racism, sexuality and violence within the family. All of
these subjects are worthy of study but have yet to be taken up.
For more research on the many cultures within Canada, Polyphony provides articles in
special editions devoted to an Ontario city’s ethnic diversity. Volume 5, Polyphony: Sudbury’s
People, includes an article by Peter V. Krats, ‘“Suomalaiset Nikkelialuella’: Finns in the Sudbury
Area, 1883-1939”,®’ which is a survey of the whole Finnish community in the Sudbury area, from
the beginning of the immigration until roughly the Second World War. Krats works with the
same sources as other researchers when writing about the start of the immigration waves and
®® Ibid., 139. ®® Ibid., 33. ®’ Peter V. Krats, ‘“Suomalaiset Nikkelialuella’: Finns in the Sudbury Area, 1883-1939,”Polyphony: Sudbury’s Peopled, no.1 (Spring/Summer 1983): 37-47.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 why the Finns chose Canada. Where this article differs from others is in the detailed facts of the
Sudbury experience. Since the major industry in Sudbury was (and is) mining, the Finnish
experience in this area is different from most other immigrant communities, where the majority
of Finns were employed in the forest industry.
Krats also mentions the role of women in the community and their economic purpose.
With women fulfilling an economic role, Krats goes on to remark on the support systems which
developed to ensure the Finnish community would survive. From these support systems came
the need for social institutions, which the Finns filled with religious affiliations; “[tjhe combined
intensity of these religious efforts suggests Sudbury area Finns were not as anti-church as is
often assumed.”®® Gradually, these church-run organizations lost influence and the political
aspect of the Finnish experience was reaffirmed by the more recent immigrants from Finland,
which was experiencing political turmoil after the First World War. The Sudbury Finns became
well-known for their political institutions, particularly the socialist ones, which continued after the
Second World War.
A number of dissertations have been written in the field of Finnish-Canadian history as,
for example, Martha Allen’s at the University of Western Ontario in 1954.®® Entitled “A Survey of
Finnish Cultural, Economic, and Political Development in the Sudbury District in Ontario,” it
discussed Finnish settlement and culture in the Sudbury area during the period 1885-1953.
Since Allen wrote her dissertation without many of the sources now available to the researcher,
such as recent census data and the information compiled in many archives, she conducted
interviews and used information on the culture of the Finns in Finland for comparative purposes.
The Finnish national epic, Kalevala, is continually cited as a cultural influence among the Finns
and their attempted integration into Canadian society. Allen concluded that the Finns did indeed
®® Ibid., 41. ®® Martha Isobel Gerard Allen, “A Survey of Finnish Cultural, Economic, and Political Development in the Sudbury District in Ontario” (M.A. diss.. University of Western Ontario, 1954).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 integrate into Canadian society but carried with them some of their own customs.
Leonard Sillanpaa also contributed to the Finnish-Canadian historiography with a
doctoral dissertation dealing with the Finns in the Sudbury region: “The Political Behaviour of
Canadians of Finnish Descent in the District of Sudbury.”®'’ As suggested by the title, Sillanpaa
was most concerned with the politics of the descendants of immigrant Finns. However, to
understand them, he had to deal with their forefathers, the immigrants themselves. Sillanpaa
discussed the reasons for emigrating, which were primarily economic. He concluded that
“emigrants wanted better living conditions; there were few opportunities in the homeland; there
were the unsettled living conditions in Finland after the war; and, for the first time in two
decades, there was a possibility to move.”®®
Research has also been done on the integration of the Finns into Canadian society. Ahti
Tolvanen’s research on that subject with respect to Port Arthur Finns will be dealt with in the
literature specifically dealing with the Finnish immigrants of the Thunder Bay area. Keijo
Virtanen authored an article on Finnish immigrants who settled around the Great Lakes in
Canada and the United States.®® This article, “Work as a Factor of Adaptation for Finnish
Immigrants in the Great Lakes Region,” dealt with the process of integration of the Finns and
focused on their labour as the main reason for their adaptation into the North American society.
Virtanen looked at three major occupations and how the Finns integrated within
Canadian society with these jobs. The first was mining, which he claimed had “strengthen[ed]
the Finnish sense of identity: the Finns wanted to preserve their Finnishness in nationality and
language even in the mines.”®’' Obviously, in these circumstances, integration was difficult. The
integration of women in domestic service was placed at the opposite end of the spectrum by
®‘* Lennard Sillanpaa, “The Political Behaviour of Canadians of Finnish Descent in the District of Sudbury” (Ph.D. diss.. University of Helsinki, 1975). ®® Ibid., 41. ®® Keijo Virtanen, “Work as a Factor of Adaptation for Finnish Immigrants in the Great Lakes Region,” Journal of Finnisfi Studies 1, no.3 (December 1997): 117-24. ®' Ibid., 119.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 Virtanen.®® Since the women were living with a family and had everyday contact with them, they
soon began to feel a part of Canadian society. As this work was also readily available, the
women were not as likely as the men miners to return to Finland for work. The third occupation
Virtanen surveys in his article is farming, which was one of the main reasons for Finns coming
to Canada and which speeded integration into Canadian society: “As Finnish settlement
expanded, it led to the establishment of stores, churches, and voluntary associations - all
factors which promote adaptation.”®® By owning a farm, the Finn was tied to the land in Canada
and through his/her children, who attended Canadian school, spoke English and had friends
from different ethnic backgrounds, completed the process of adaptation and eventually
integrated into Canadian society.
FINNISH IMMIGRATION TO THUNDER BAY
This discussion now leads us to the particular interest of this thesis, which is Finns in
Thunder Bay. What Lindstrom-Best has done for Finns in Toronto and Oiva Saarinen for Finns
in Sudbury, Ahti Tolvanen has done for Finns in Port Arthur. In a number of articles and
books,^® Tolvanen delves into the Finnish immigrant experience in Port Arthur, now Thunder
Bay. His main purpose for the research is one of motivation for other researchers; “If this work
has succeeded in suggesting some guideposts for studying ethnic history, including the
inspiration of work on labour history and local social history, then it will have largely served its
purpose.”^’ Tolvanen dealt with how certain activities and organizations formed by the Finns
helped their integration into Canadian society. The organizations he included in his research
®® Ibid., 120. ®® Ibid., 122. ™ Ahti Tolvanen, Finntown: A Perspective on Urban Integration, Port Arthur Finns in the Interwar Period, 1918-1939 (Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 1985), Ahti Tolvanen, “Finns in Port Arthur in the Interwar Period: A Perspective on Urban Integration,” in Finnish Diaspora I: Canada, South America, Africa, Australia and Sweden, ed. Michael G. Kami, 60-76, (Toronto: The Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1981); and Ahti Tolvanen, “Population Development of Finns in Port Arthur,” Polyphony: Thunder Bay’s Peopled, no.2 (1987): 43-45. Ibid., 125.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25 were the church, co-operatives, labour organizations, and cultural associations such as those
mentioned below in Project Bay Street. Each organization had a unique status within the
Finnish community and sought to assist integration; however, Tolvanen concluded that the
Finns were never really assimilated but merely adapted their own forms of society into Canada.
The research done on Finnish immigrants in the Thunder Bay area is very important and
adds to the historiography of the area. As well, the Thunder Bay Finnish-Canadian Historical
Society has been involved in two research projects, appropriately called ‘Project Bay Street’
after the street around which the Finnish community in Thunder Bay clustered. One deals with
the rural area outside of Thunder Bay, A Chronicle of Finnish Settlements in Rural Thunder
Bay: Bay Street Project No.27^ This project interviewed residents of rural areas outside of
Thunder Bay and analyzed land deeds for what they could tell about early Finnish settlers. Each
of the townships with a large population of Finns was included: North Branch, Tarmola, Lappe,
Kivikoski, Ostola, Intola, Miller, Alppila, Kaministiquia and Pohjola, Sunshine^®, Sellars and
Leeper, Nolalu, Suomi and Silver Mountain, Pearson and Devon. The townships are discussed
from their inception as Finnish areas and the analysis focuses on their political, social, and
economic development.
The other project published was Project Bay Street: Activities of Finnish-Canadians In
Thunder Bay Before 19157^ This is a compilation of articles by many researchers and resulted
in a book edited by Marc Metsaranta. These articles explore Finnish-Canadian life in the city
before the First World War and touch on the social, economic, and political activities of these
immigrants.
Thunder Bay Finnish-Canadian Historical Society, A Chronicle of Finnish Settlements in Rural Thunder Bay: Bay Street Project No.2, (Thunder Bay; Canadan Uutiset, 1976). ^® Shabaqua, Finmark, Kashabowie, Mabella and Shebandowan are all added into the section on Sunshine. Ibid., 99. Marc Metsaranta, ed.. Project Bay Street: Activities of Finnish-Canadians in Thunder Bay Before 1915, (Thunder Bay: The Thunder Bay Finnish-Canadian Historical Society, 1989). Although this work was published in 1989, the research was actually undertaken and privately published in 1974 and then developed into a better work by 1989.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 Metsaranta provides a general survey of Finnish immigration to the Thunder Bay area in
chapter two and the workingmen’s associations in chapters six through eleven. Christine Kouhi
wrote the chapter on the Finnish church, which was bolstered by her research done while she
was a student at Lakehead University. Tellervo Kahara tackled the history of the temperance
society. With this research, one can look at, and understand why, later immigrants were drawn
to the area, as there were all the community organizations which would make them feel
welcome. The workingmen’s associations in particular created invaluable community activities,
whose purposes were to provide leisure activities for workers and also to create feelings of
community and kinship. Later, Metsaranta describes how Imatra #9’'® organized itself into
several committees to offer Finnish-Canadians the social and economic activities they wanted
as well as adding greatly to their quality of life: “the entertainment committee, the band, the
choir, the drama society, the gym club, the educational committee, the mutual aid, the Sickness
and Funeral Assistance Fund, the women’s organizations and the Reading Room and Library
were all an integral part of what made the organization function.”’’®
A number of dissertations, by Christine Kouhi and Mary Veltri (History), Michael Maunula
(Sociology) and Robert Orr (Geography), have been written on this subject for various
departments at Lakehead University.^’’ Kouhi analyzes the first immigrant wave, from 1876 to
1914, dealing with “churches, temperance societies and workingmen’s associations’”’® and how
they evolved and affected Finns in Thunder Bay. This was later condensed into an article for
the Lakehead University Review, “Labour and Finnish Immigration to Thunder Bay, 1876-1914.”
Here, she underlines the radicalism of many early Finnish immigrants, noting that “In Finland,
’’® This association was affiliated first with the Imatra League, then to a Local of the Socialist Party of Canada, and then to the Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada, as detailed in Ibid., 69-88. ^® Ibid., 108-09. ’’’’ Christine Kouhi, “Finnish Immigrants in Thunder Bay: 1876-1914” (B.A. diss., Lakehead University, 1975), Mary Veltri, “Labour Radicalism Among Finnish Bushworkers at the Lakehead, 1916-1936” (B.A. diss., Lakehead University, 1981), Michael J. Maunula, “The Retention of Ethnic Culture Among Thunder Bay Finns” (M.A. diss., Lakehead University, 1984), and Robert Orr, “Population at the Canadian Lakehead from 1901-1961 : An Analysis of Patterns and Trends” (B.A. diss., Lakehead University, 1970). ^® Kouhi, “Finnish Immigrants,” 10.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 soc ialism, social democracy and trade unions were an accepted and recognized part of life well
before the First World War; but in Canada they were considered radical institutions.’”® She
concludes by noting that
the pre-World War One period for the Finnish immigrants in Thunder Bay was one of establishment. The Finns “took root” in the economic life of Thunder Bay and formed a visible segment of the populations of Port Arthur and Fort William. At the same time, however, they nurtured their own traditions brought with them from Finland and sought to maintain a specifically “Finnish” identity, one which separated them from all other residents of the Thunder Bay cities.®®
Veltri’s conclusions in “Labour Radicalism Among Finnish Bushworkers at the
Lakehead, 1916-1936,” are similar, at least in terms of the radicalism so prevalent among
segments of the Finnish immigrant population. This radicalism, Veltri stated, was “found in
political traditions which Finnish immigrants brought from their homeland.”®’ Her dissertation
detailed the labour scene during the period 1916 to 1936 and examined the relationship
between labour and the Finnish immigrants, with special emphasis on the period of the Great
Depression.
Maunula’s dissertation discusses the culture of the Thunder Bay Finns as demonstrated
within the younger generation, which generally includes first through fifth generation Finnish-
Canadians.®® Maunula set out to prove that urban Finns who resided in a largely Finnish-
populated area will retain Finnish culture more than either rural Finns or Finns residing in non-
Finnish areas. This was true, he found, although he also discovered that all Finns retained their
Lindstrom-Best, “Finns in Canada,” Polyphony: 8. ®® Christine Kouhi, “Labour and Finnish Immigration to Thunder Bay, 1876-1914,” The Lakehead University Review9, no.1 (Spring 1976): 35. ®’ Veltri, 117. ®® His research entailed the answering of questionnaires by the Finns, with questions relating to their Finnishness and their perceived adherence to the Finnish culture.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 culture to a great extent; “the Finnish community maintained its character with little difficulty.”®®
This research suggests that Finns were integrated into Canadian society but did not necessarily
assimilate into it.
Robert Orr’s dissertation, “Population at the Canadian Lakehead from 1901-1961,”
analyzes the pattern resulting from the influx and outflow of population with respect to Thunder
Bay and surrounding area. He looked at the physical setting of the area, the climate, and
physical geography. This study led him to state that the Finns, for the most part, settled in the
“forested regions of the study area where the transfer of Finnish culture found physical
environments similar to that of Central Finland.”®^ Orr also dealt with the historical background
to the settlement of the area, the reasons for the growth of the area, and the pattern of its
growth. For this study, the most interesting portion of the dissertation is the chapter entitled
“Ethnic Origin Patterns,” which details which areas were home to which ethnic grouping. Not
every ethnic group had a “region” in the study area but, to a great extent, people of the same
ethnic background tended to stay in the same areas or townships as others of the same ethnic
origin. However, Orr also declared that these areas were not static but changed over time.
In his Master’s dissertation titled “Finnish Settlement in Thunder Bay,” Mark Rasmussen,
surveyed the areas heavily populated with Finns and explained why the Finns settled around
the city.®® Like Tolvanen, Rasmussen’s research led him to conclude that “what the Finns
accomplished in rural Thunder Bay was a fairly direct transplant of their traditional cultural
landscape into a new, but familiar physical environment.”®® Analyzing the building structures and
patterns and comparing them to ones found in Finland, as well as non-Finnish building sites in
the same areas, he was able to determine how much similarity and how much change had been
made in the architecture. This thesis inspired his article, “Finnish Settlement in Rural Thunder
®® Maunula, 191. ®’ Orr, 60. ®® Mark Rasmussen, “Finnish Settlement in Thunder Bay” (M.A. diss., University of Alberta, 1978). ®® Ibid., 173.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 Bay, Ontario, Canada,” which appeared in the journal Nordia^'^ Rasmussen agreed that Finns
settled in the region because of geographical and climatic similarities between Northwestern
Ontario and Finland.
Added to this compilation of sources on the history of the Thunder Bay area is
Polyphony, the journal of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario. Thunder Bay’s People
presented a collection of articles dealing with all the immigrant groups of the city.®® In a section
devoted to “The Finnish Experience,” four authors stressed the Finnish immigrants and their
activities within the city. The first, by Arja Pilli, discusses the origins of the first non-socialist
Finnish newspaper in Canada, the Canadan Uutiset. ®® This article is an abridged version of
Pilli’s article “The Finnish Language Press in Canada, 1901-1939,” which first appeared as a
special publication by the Institute of Migration (Siirtolaisuusinstitutti) in Turku.®® Ahti Tolvanen’s
piece is also an abridged version of one of his articles in another journal, Finnish Diaspora.
“Population Development of Finns in Port Arthur” came from “Finns in Port Arthur in the
Interwar Period: A Perspective on Urban Integration” which appeared in Finnish Diaspora / and
which has been mentioned above with respect to Finnish immigration to the Thunder Bay area.
The other two articles®’ relate to the activities of the Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical
Society and explain what Finns are doing within the community to enhance knowledge of
Finnish culture.
Finally, and of some importance to the evolution of this dissertation, was the work of two
undergraduates at Lakehead University, Gayle Tuominen and Sinikka Valila. Their paper, “A
Study of Finnish Immigration to Thunder Bay,” provided background research into Finnish
Mark Rasmussen, “Finnish Settlement in Rural Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada,”Nordia 19, no.2 (1985): 73-80. ®® Robert Harney, ed., Polyphony: Thunder Bay’s Peopled, no.2 (1987): 39-50. ®® Arja Pilli, “The Origins of Canadan Uutiset,” Polyphony: Thunder Bay’s People 9, no2 (1987):39-42. ®® The full article appeared in Migration Studies C6 (Turku: Siirtolaisuusinstitutti, 1982). ®’ These articles are: J. Donald Wilson, “Bay Street Project: a Successful Use of Multicultural Funds,” and Jorma Halonen, “A Glimpse into the Activities of the Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society,” Polyphony: Thunder Bay’s Peopled, no.2 (1987): 46-50.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30 immigration movements. While suggesting various reasons as to why Finns emigrated to
Northwestern Ontario -- similarity in climate and terrain, the search for economic betterment,
joining relatives already in the region, and, finally, because of a sense of adventure - the two
authors conclude that
All four factors apparently played an important role in drawing Finns to this area. The deciding factor seems to be the search for a better life - the location being decided by the geographical features which determine the type of work available. The earlier arrivals came searching for adventure or work, whereas, the later arrivals came as followers.®®
The above conclusion forms the basis for this dissertation.
To conclude this historiographic survey of Finnish-Canadian immigration research, Olavi
Koivukangas has produced an article which details the research currently being undertaken in
the Finnish migration field and also the research he feels is needed. “Challenges of Finnish
Migration Research and Genealogy in the New Millennium” divides the task into five topics;
emigration, immigration, neo-racism and xenophobia, policy oriented research, and internal
mobility in Finland.®® He then suggests where the researchers of tomorrow must delve deeper
as “[mjuch more research ... remains to be done.”®’ Koivukangas points out that the majority of
the research already completed has related to the pre-World War One period; the “big
challenge remains for scholars both in North America and Europe to study the culture and the
ethnic maintenance of North American Finns and their descendants in the post-W[orld] W[ar] I
era.”®® In order for this research to be done, Koivukangas suggests the creation of national and
international networks of migration researchers and institutions with relevant information. To
Gayle Tuominen and Sinikka Valila, “A Study of Finnish Immigration to Thunder Bay” (Unpublished paper for History 2a6, Lakehead University, 1972), 12. These undergraduates attributed one of these four factors, the search for jobs and economic survival, to S.C. Olin, Finlandia (Hancock, Michigan: The Book Concern, 1957). ®® Olavi Koivukangas, “Challenges of Finnish Migration Research and Genealogy in the New Millenium,” Journal of Finnish Studies 1, no.3 (December 1997): 48-55. ®’ Ibid., 52. ®® Ibid., 52.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31 use these networks, he suggests that second and third generation Finnish-Canadians and
Finnish-Americans should be encouraged to research their roots; “[t]he exploration of one’s
ethnicity has thus resulted in the formation of a new historical consciousness.”®® In a sense, that
is what this thesis will attempt. The author’s heritage is Finnish and she has an abiding interest
in researching its roots in Thunder Bay. Indeed, following Koivukangas’ advice, I have been
“hooked.”
96 Ibid., 54.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter Three
Finnish Immigrants in Canada
“According to the Department of Immigration records, fifteen thousand Finnish
immigrants entered Canada between January 1951 and July 1959.”®’’ In 1951, there was the
largest outflow of Finnish emigrants since the declaration of Finnish independence in 1918.
From this flood, 21 percent settled in Canada.®® This influx of immigrants into Canada was
spurred by many different factors, which can be divided into two basic categories: the push
factors, those that caused Finns to leave their homeland in search of a new life, and the pull
factors, those that led the immigrants to the new land. Before the First World War, these factors
were intertwined with the economic and political unrest Finland was experiencing. Although “the
political upheaval during this time was of paramount concern to government officials and
Finnish intellectuals, it was not the prime cause of dissatisfaction and discontent among the
Finnish population generally.”®® The “prime cause” centred on the traditional system of land
ownership which had been undergoing major changes, creating a landless class within the rural
population of Finland. When these landless labourers were unable to find work in Finnish cities
and towns, they had to look elsewhere. At the same time, Canada was trying to recruit as many
immigrant labourers as possible to help fulfil its growing needs.
Before the First World War, the overwhelming majority of immigrants who found their
way to North America chose the United States. These immigrants came mostly from the central
and northern provinces of Vaasa and Oulu, the area known as Pohjanmaa.’®® Many settled in
the growing Finnish communities of Minnesota and Michigan, fuelled by the mining and
lumbering sectors. Eventually, because of a recession, these immigrants worked their way into
®7Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society Collection, MG 8, Series A, Project I, Box 1, Folder 4, item 1, Margit Wataja, “Causes and Results of Finnish Emigration to America.” 25/02/74 ®® Out of the 19,664 Finns who emigrated, only 4,158 came to Canada. Lennard Sillenpââ, 41. ®® Metsaranta, 11. Saarinen, Pattern and Impact of Finnish Settlement in Canada, 2.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33 Ca nada, where a large number of labourers were needed for the building of the Canadian
Pacific Railway.
During this first wave of immigration, the Finns cited many reasons for their migration
from their homeland, including the situation of the landless agricultural working class, the harsh
conditions which met the small-scale farmers in the north, the uncertainties of the changing
economy, their resentment of upper-class Swedes still maintaining their hold on Finnish society,
the growing fear of a militant Germany, and the revival of Russification policies.’®’ Prior to the
First World War, the Finnish economy looked anaemic in comparison to the tales of riches
which were being told about North America by the Finns already in the two countries and also
by American and Canadian immigration agents in Finland, whose job it was to promote the
United States and Canada as places to settle. The Finns “did not become really interested in
emigration until they learned that America offered better possibilities for economic
advancement.’”®®
The Finns fell under the category of desirable immigrants because of their working
abilities; “Finns were rated as the best railroad workers among all the nationalities.”’®® Another
factor in the large-scale immigration into North America was the comparatively high wages
which were paid in the New World. Reino Kero points out that at the turn of the century, a good
worker in Finland would be able to save two to three hundred marks a year, whereas in North
America, that same worker could save up to 1,500 marks.”” This search for economic survival
can be described as the ‘labour migration’ of workers looking for a better situation in another
country. Labour migration can be seen in almost every ethnic migration to Canada, as it is one
of the basic reasons for leaving one’s homeland.’®® Whether or not the migrating labourers
’®’ Allen, 10. ’°® Kero, “The Background of Finnish Emigration,” 58. ’®® Van Cleef, “Finnish Settlement in Canada,” 260. Kero, “The Background of Finnish Emigration,” 60. ’®® Bruce Elliott, Irish Migrants in the Canadas: A New Approach (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s Press, 1988) is just one example of this labour migration.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 settled in the new land for short or extended periods of time was an individual decision reached
by the economic and social integration of workers and their families into the new society.
Most of the Finns who came to Canada in the first wave were also attracted to the
country because of the freedom it represented from Tsarist Russia. Many of these immigrants
were determined to make money in Canada and return to their homeland when the political
situation stabilized. Finland was going through a period of industrialization during the late
nineteenth century and the agricultural way of life for most Finns was being disrupted with
smaller farmers being thrust into an economy that they did not understand. Once in Canada,
many of the immigrants decided to remain there because of the better economic situation they
found themselves in.
The second Finnish wave of immigration to Canada was the period between the First
World War and the Great Depression. During this wave, the two main factors were the
continuing hard economic times in Finland due to the Civil War and its aftermath, and the
introduction in 1924 of a new immigration quota system in the United States’®®, which was still
seen as the most desirable location for the immigrants.’®^ However, the other factors already
mentioned played a huge role in the migration of the Finns to Canada, i.e., the search for a
better economic life, the desire for adventure and the seemingly endless possibilities offered by
the country to those Finns who were ready to take some risks.
Another reason why Finns left their homeland was the political instability of the fledgling
nation, which had only declared its independence from the Russian Empire on 6 December
1917. As always happens in a civil war, there are two sides fighting, each espousing a different
ideology and idea with respect to how the country should be governed. In this case, the two
sides were the nationalist Finnish White Guards, who fought for the ‘freedom’ allowed by the
new Bolshevik government in Moscow, and the Finnish Red Guards who fought for a continuing
’°® This was called the National Origins Act. ’®^ Rasmussen, “Finnish Settlement in Thunder Bay,” 37.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 re lationship with the new Soviet Russia. Once the war was over, the Finnish White Guards had
installed their government, with the Red Guard having some representation. However, this
victory by the nationalists made the latter nervous and some fled to Canada in order to avoid
the reprisals which they were sure would follow. This political instability also pushed some of
the less politically minded citizens to migrate to Canada because of the apparent stability of the
political situation there, which meant that they no longer had to deal with politics and could
instead spend their time on economic survival.
The push and pull factors which instigated the third wave of immigration were similar to
the factors which prompted the first and second waves. There were social, economic, and
political reasons for thousands of Finns to immigrate to another country. However similar the
push and pull factors were, the Finns who decided to emigrate were different from those who
had emigrated before the Second World War. The post-war migrants were more urbanized and,
as a whole, they were classed as skilled workers instead of unskilled as previous migrants.
After the end of the Second World War, “many Finns feared that their country was next
on the list of those which were to be forced to accept the status of a Soviet satellite.”’®® Three
other countries on the Baltic Sea, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were brought into the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics in 1940 after signing Mutual Assistance Pacts. The Finnish
government would not sign any such pact with the Soviet Union and the Winter War was
fought. Since Finland had lost, many Finns thought that the Soviet Union might bring their
homeland under the huge Russian umbrella. This fear sent many looking for a new home, away
from political uncertainty.
Despite these political difficulties, the Finnish immigrants who left their homeland during
the third wave of immigration did so for primarily economic reasons. At the conclusion of the
Second World War, Finland was on the losing side. The war reparations which the country had
108 Singleton, 144.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36 to pay to the USSR resulted in an increase in taxation and in a sagging economy. Large
numbers of Finns wished to escape from this economic downswing and looked to Canada, with
its booming economy, for a way out. However, after the war, the Canadian government did not
allow many Finnish immigrants into the country, as they were seen as enemies of the state
under Order-in-Council PC1373.’°® It was not until the order was rescinded in 1947 that Finnish
immigrants were once again allowed to enter Canada. With the floodgates open, the years
following saw large numbers of immigrants from Finland.
It was also during this wave of immigration that there developed a new group of
immigrants. These were known as the “sponsored immigrants,” which meant that they were
relatives of Canadian citizens who were willing to sponsor and assist the immigrants in
integrating into Canadian society.” ® These sponsors would have to sign papers agreeing to
feed and shelter the incoming family members until they were set up on their own.’” Many
Finns fell into this category, as many Finnish-Canadians had advised their relatives to make the
move to the more prosperous country. This group of 1950s Finns concentrated on unifying their
families by moving them to Canada. The letters from family and friends living in Canada created
a chain migration” ® and helped spur those Finns still deciding whether to immigrate. This
method of immigration meant an easier time of adjustment for the new immigrants and also
helped to bolster the ethnic communities within Canada.
’®® As noted previously, the Finns were thought to be enemies of the state because during the course of the war, Finland was a co-belligerent with Germany in the fight against the Soviet Union which was allied with Britain and the United States. Britain declared Finland to be an enemy of the state, and Canada followed the British lead. In 1941, the Canadian government declared Order-in-Council P C I373, which deemed Finland an enemy nation. Statement from the Director of Immigration, F.C. Blair, January 16, 1942 as cited in Varpu Lindstrom-Best, “The Impact of Canadian Immigration Policy,” 11. Also, see Appendix 9 for more information on Government regulations in immigration. ” ® Reg Whitaker, Canadian Immigration Policy Since Confederation (Otlavia: Canadian Historical Association, 1991), 16. ’” Interview with Arvo Puumala, Thunder Bay, 2002. ” ® Oiva Saarinen defines chain migration as “the encouragement and assistance of friends and relatives to immigrate to Canada by those compatriots and family who had already settled here." Oiva Saarinen, “Geographical Perspectives on Finnish Settlements in the Sudbury Area,” Journal of Finnish Studies 1, no. 3 (December 1997): 21.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37 Another interesting aspect of the third wave of immigration was the gender composition
of the group. During the first and second waves, the majority of migrants were males, either
single or married, looking for work, available land or adventure. The third wave’s majority was
women, coming to complete their families, or looking for work or adventure, much like their
male counterparts. Saarinen points out that, between 1968 and 1992, 54 percent of the Finnish
immigrants who arrived in Canada were women.” ®
In the 1950s, 14,193 Finnish immigrants came to find a new life in Canada. There were
4,158 Finns who immigrated in 1951, making it the largest influx of immigrants in a single year
since 1929, when 4,712 Finns had moved to Canada. This large number was not kept up
through the 1950s, but dropped to less than 3,000 each year until 1961, when it plummeted to
381.” ’
Finland’s climate and geography played an interesting role in the settlement of Finnish
immigrants. According to the geographer, Eugene Van Cleef, when the first Finnish settlers
came to Canada, they chose to settle in areas which reminded them of home, a land of lakes
and forests.” ® An analysis of the patterns of Finnish immigration to the United States, where
“Finnish immigrants tended to settle in the northern states, where the climate and scenery were
similar to those of the home country,”” ® shows a similar pattern to settlement in Canada.
The similarity of the geography between these states and Ontario is striking. The areas
in Northwestern Ontario were perhaps the most similar to their homeland. The Thunder Bay
area bears a great likeness to the climate and landscape of Finland. Even the main species of
trees found in Finland, alder, aspen, birch, pine, and spruce, occur in abundance in the Thunder
” ® Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 17. ” ’ Lindstrom-Best, “Finns in Canada,” Polyphony: Finns In Ontario 3, no.2 (Fall 1981): originally taken from Statistics Canada. See also Appendix 1. ” ® Van Cleef, “Finns in the United States and Canada,” 35-37 and “Finnish Settlement in Canada,” 253- 66 . ” ® Aaltio, 66.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 Bay area.” ^ However, this pattern was not established strictly because of similar scenery.
Instead, as Stanley Frank Hunnisett points out; “in Finland they had worked out eclectic
adaptation for coping with a subarctic, boreal forest environment which may have equipped
them better than other immigrant groups to succeed in that particular economic-environmental
niche.”” ®
During this century, the percentage of Finns living in Ontario, as a percentage of those
living in Canada, has not dipped much below fifty, staying relatively steady at 65 percent of the
total Finnish immigration to Canada for the last fifty years. The only other province that holds a
large proportion of the Finnish population is British Columbia, which has never exceeded more
than 20 percent.” ® Alberta, by 1930, had more than 10 percent of the Finnish population but,
after the 1931 census, this percentage dropped.’®® Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Quebec each
have had some higher percentages during the century but, since the peak in 1921, the
population percentages have fallen to lower levels. The other provinces and territories have
only a small percentage of Finns living within them.
These numbers, when related to Van Cleef’s major areas of Finnish settlement’®’, show
why he proposed his theory of geographically-inspired immigration. When looking at the
geographical characteristics of the provinces with low percentages of Finnish immigrants, it is
interesting to note that those provinces are in the Prairie west, the Maritimes, and the territories.
Singleton, 10. ” ® Stanley Frank Hunnisett, “From Pohjanmaa to the Shores of Gitchee Gumee: Finns and Indians in the Northern Lake Superior Region” (M.A. diss.. University of Iowa, 1988), 15. ” ® The first settlement of Finns in the province of British Columbia came after the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867. A iarge portion of the seamen and labourers found in Alaska were of Finnish ethnicity, as Finiand was a Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire, and when Alaska was bought, these men migrated southward to Vancouver Island and nearby localities. See Oiva Saarinen, “The Pattern and Impact of Finnish Settlement in Canada,” Terra 77, no.4 (1967): 113. ’®® By looking at the Census, it can be determined that 1931 was the end of the second wave of Finnish immigration. There were oniy 136 people who came from Finland in 1931, whereas there were 2,811 Finns who came in 1930 and the numbers drop down until the start of the third wave in 1951. See Korkiasaari, “Immigration to Canada of People of Finnish Origin or Birth 1900-1977.” ’®’ These geographic areas are the Victoria-Vancouver region, the Edmonton-Calgary region, the Middle Transition Zone, the Lake Superior region, and the Toronto-Hamilton region. Van Cleef, “Finnish Settlement in Canada”.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 Finns did not settle in Quebec because, by the end of the Second World War, many were
learning English as a third language, after Finnish and Swedish, and they felt more comfortable
in the areas of Canada where English was spoken. ’®®
FINNISH IMMIGRANTS IN ONTARIO
In Ontario, the two major Finnish areas are the Toronto-Hamilton area and the area
around Lake Superior, including the Thunder Bay, Algoma and Sudbury regions. Finnish
immigrants tended to stick together as an ethnic group rather than settling in areas without
other Finns. As Varpu Lindstrom-Best has noted, “Although the Finns have never comprised
even 0.5 per cent of the Canadian population, they tended to settle in clusters, thus increasing
their visibility.’”®® In each of the Finnish areas, there developed a residential core which was
seen as the heart of the Finnish immigrant community. To the present-day observer, these
areas can still be seen. Over time, these areas became less residential and more commercial in
their make-up; however, Finnish culture remained very visible.
As the largest city in the Toronto-Hamilton region, Toronto has been home to a steadily
declining number of Finns. In the 1931 Canada Census, 7.9 percent of Finns in Canada resided
in Toronto but, by 1981, only 2.9 percent called Toronto home. According to Lindstrom-Best,
the Finnish immigrants who settled in Toronto tended for the most part to reside in the area
where the first Finnish settlers made their homes. This community was developed after the
Finnish tailor, James (Jaakko Lintala) Lindala, decided to settle there in 1887, immigrating from
the northern part of Michigan. He had heard of employment opportunities in Canada and
decided to seek his fortune here. He found that he liked the community of Toronto enough to
stay and then persuaded some of his friends and family from Michigan and Finland to follow
’®® In Finland, the official languages are Finnish and Swedish, followed by English as a minority language. Presently, all school children learn English during their schooling. ’®® Lindstrom-Best, “Finns in Canada,” Polyphony, 14.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40 him to Toronto, which was full of promise as a fast-growing city.’®’ In 1903, the Finnish
community was centralized in south-central Toronto, in the area bounded by Queen Street in
the north. King Street on the south, Peter Street in the east and York Street on the west. The
heart of the Finnish community was kept in the centralized area but many of the settlers were
moving their residences further east into the Don River area and further west outside of the city
centre.’®®
This shift in these areas mirrored the movement of the residential areas to the suburban
areas of Toronto. Today, the residential areas are found outside of the city centre. The trend to
move into the suburbs is unique to the bigger centres, as the smaller towns and villages found
the population was more likely to move into the urban areas away from the rural hinterlands.
This movement was partly inspired by the increased availability of employment within the urban
areas. The period of decreased immigration by Finns prior to the third wave was when the trend
towards urbanization became noticeable.’®® The smaller centres in the Lake Superior area are
examples of this.
The region defined by Van Cleef as the Lake Superior area includes the districts of
Algoma, Sudbury and Thunder Bay. The Algoma District is the area surrounding the city of
Sault Ste. Marie. This city offered employment in the metal foundry and the forest industry, but
jobs were not as plentiful as in the other regions mentioned. From 1931 until 1971, roughly 5
percent of the Finns in Canada and 7 percent of the Finns in Ontario lived in the Algoma
District.’®’’ Then, in 1981, the Census reports the percentages dropping to 4 percent and 6
percent respectively. Like most of the Finnish areas in Canada, the ethnically Finnish population
began to settle more in the urban centres than in the rural areas. For example, until 1971, the
’®’ Lindstrom-Best, The Finnish Immigrant Community of Toronto, 1887-1913, 4. ’®® Ibid., 12. ’®® Saarinen, Pattern and Impact of Finnish Settlement in Canada, 6-8. ’®® See Appendix 5 (Canadian Finns in Major Districts and Cities) and Appendix 6 (Ontario Finns in Relevant Districts and Cities).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 Census shows that only half of the Finns lived within the city limits of Sault Ste. Marie, but the
percentage rose to 78 percent by 1971 and to 98 percent by 1981. Although these numbers are
also influenced by boundary changes, these percentages still show a movement from rural to
urban areas, as the traditional ways of living were changing to become more urbanized and
industrialized. This movement from rural to urban living is mirrored in many of the different cities
within Canada and Ontario.
The Sudbury District has been home for a great number of Finnish immigrants who
came to Canada in search of work. Peter Krats has shown that “by 1890 Sudbury was an
established destination, particularly for immigrants from Vaasa [a province in southwest
Finland].’”®® The Sudbury area, especially the Copper Cliff region, contains many mines and
forests which could provide a wage for many labourers, and the Finnish immigrants looking for
employment in Canada were accustomed to hard work.’®® The percentage of Canadian Finns in
the Sudbury District hovered around 10 percent from 1931 until 1981, peaking in 1961 at 12.5
percent. From there, decline set in and by 1981, only 8.6 percent of the Canadian Finnish
population was located within the Sudbury District.
The first Finnish settlers in the Sudbury area were attracted to the many labouring jobs
available in the mining and forestry industries. However, these Finns were also attracted by the
land which could be bought. These Finns were said to have had ‘land fever,’ the desire to own
land.’®® Agriculture offered security against the irregularity of seasonal employment. Thomas
Jacobson (Tuomas Karppi) was the first Finnish immigrant in the Sudbury area to save enough
money from his job at the Canadian Copper Company to buy a piece of land on which to
establish a farm that offered his family security. Jacobson, along with ten other Finnish
’®® Krats, 39. ’®® According to Oiva Saarinen, Copper Cliff was “second only to the Thunder Bay area as the destination for Finnish immigrants coming to Ontario.” Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 35. ’®® Saarinen aiso states that this land fever is “revealed by the place names on maps that Finns in Canada gave their farming areas such as Intola (Enthusiasm), Tarmola (Energy), and Toimela (Accomplishment).” Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 184.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42 immigrants, was the pioneer of the Sudbury Finnish community.’®’
Not unlike the Algoma District, the move to the urban area was on a large scale. By
1981, 67 percent of the Sudbury District Finns were found within the city of Sudbury. There
could be many reasons for this, perhaps one being that the villages found within the district
each had an industry which could sustain the workforce of the rural population. One such
example would be the Copper Cliff area, whose mine was a place of employment for a great
number of the Finns found in the Sudbury District. The city of Sudbury, even today, is made up
of many smaller townships, which are grouped together and classified as a metropolitan area.
However, these smaller townships are still considered by their residents as separate villages
and communities. The townships of Lome and Broder, for example, contained a large
percentage of the Finnish immigrant population in the district. According to the Canada Census
of 1941, Lome’s population was nearly 88 percent Finnish and Broder’s was 62 percent.’®® For
the 1981 Census, these two townships had been amalgamated into the census tracts of
Walden and the city of Sudbury, respectively, and therefore the Finnish population is more
difficult to calculate for the smaller townships.
FINNISH IMMIGRANTS IN THE THUNDER BAY AREA
Finnish immigrants began settling in the Thunder Bay area with the development of the
Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1870s. Thus, the “Thunder Bay area has been described as the
oldest area of Finnish settlement in Canada.’”®® By 1951, it also had the largest percentage of
Finnish population outside of Finland. The Canada Census shows that, in 1931, 20.5 percent
(9,000) of all Finns in Canada were to be found in the Thunder Bay District and roughly half (47
percent) of these lived within the urban area. In fact, 14 percent of the population of Thunder
’®’ Ibid., 39. ’®® Statistics Canada, Census of Canada, 1941. Table 32. ’®® Rev. Arvi I. Heinonen, Finnish Friends in Canada (Toronto: United Church of Canada, 1930), 85, as cited in Metsaranta, 18.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 Bay was of Finnish ethnicity.’®’ It has been suggested that one reason for the urban migration
of the Finns was the availability of work. The economic boom experienced in the early 1920s
led to the construction of new paper mills and elevators within the cities of Port Arthur and Fort
William.’®® At the peak of Finnish immigration in 1951, 23 percent of Canadian Finns had settled
in the Thunder Bay area. Of this proportion, 47 percent could be found in the urban centre. By
1981, the movement of Finns to the urban centre had risen to the point where 92 percent of the
Finnish population in the District of Thunder Bay resided within the city limits of Thunder Bay.
The Finnish immigrants who chose to come to the Thunder Bay area after the Second
World War had many reasons for doing so. One of these was the promise of economic viability
to sustain their families, which had drawn immigrants to the area during each of the three
waves of immigration. Another was the similar landscape that the area had to offer, which could
be seen as a residual byproduct of the economic viability offered. Yet another was the
burgeoning Finnish community which was growing steadily with the influx of more immigrants
from the homeland, due to the ‘chain migration’ effect.
By the third wave of immigration, the Finnish community in Thunder Bay already
consisted of many churches, and social organizations and even had a Finnish press. This
community made things easier for the newly arrived immigrants by offering a link to the old
country. These organizations gave the new immigrants a helping hand in integrating into the
new society. Classes for learning English were offered to some of the older immigrants. The
younger ones were sent to area schools where they learned the English language and brought
it home to their families, who were then able to adapt to the community more easily.
The economic situation in the region after the Second World War looked more
promising to the immigrants than the situation in Finland. There were many more jobs available,
especially in the forestry sector, which could employ hundreds of men willing to work hard. This
’®’ Statistics Canada, Census of Canada, 1931. Table 32. ’®® Tolvanen, “Population Development of Finns in Port Arthur,’’ 43.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44 sect or was booming and many camps needed both men and women to fill the jobs, both in
unskilled and skilled labourer jobs. These skilled jobs paid a higher wage than similar positions
in Finland, so many young men came to Canada to make their fortune in the bush camps. Even
single mothers were able to find jobs because of the logging industry, as there were cooks and
cookees’®® needed in every camp and there were jobs within the cities when the men were on
days off from the camps. Some women worked in the restaurants and cafeterias, some worked
in the laundries, and others were employed in the rooming houses.
As well, when Finnish immigrants came to settle in the Thunder Bay area, they were
well equipped to farm in the more difficult to cultivate areas. By the time the Finnish immigrants
arrived, most of the better agricultural land had been settled and the Finns were obliged to
settle on the more difficult land.’®’' The Finns in the Thunder Bay area are renowned for their
“stump farming or kantofarmari,”^^ only clearing enough wood from the forest to build a
homestead and a large enough garden to supply the family with some food, perhaps a barn for
some animals, and leaving the rest uncultivated. The Finns were excellent at using what they
had available to them to ensure their economic survival. Finnish immigrants did not intend to
live solely by the farms, but rather sought to supplement their income from the many jobs
available in the areas of forestry, construction, and mining. This area also held the potential for
hunting and fishing, which would assist the Finns in sustaining their families through the leaner
times.’®® The Finns were unlike their agricultural neighbours of the region, who intended to use
their farms to provide income for their families.
From the time the first Finnish immigrants settled in the Thunder Bay area, this ethnic
’®® A cookee was the assistant who peeled potatoes, served the meals and washed the dishes for the cook, among other various jobs. ’®’’ This appeared to be the case in the Sudbury region as well. Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 69. ’®® Lindstrom-Best, “Finns in Canada,” Polyphony, 8. ’®® O.W. Saarinen and G.O. Tapper, “The Beaver Lake Finnish-Canadian Community; A Case Study of Ethnic Transition as Influenced by the Variables of Time and Spatial Networks, ca. 1907-1983,” in Finns in North America, ed., Michael G. Kami et al., (Turku; Institute of Migration, 1988), 172.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 gro up has been consistent in centring its community in one locality. Finnish immigrants
preferred to live their lives within the boundaries of their own ethnic community as much as
possible.” ® The primary areas of Finnish settlement within the City of Thunder Bay have
changed somewhat throughout the century but have remained approximately the same; the Bay
Street area, the Ruttan Street-Court Street area, and the Empress Avenue-Red River Road
area in Port Arthur and the East End area in Fort William.” ’ The Ruttan and Court Streets area
and the Empress Avenue-Red River Road area were developed as residential sectors for
Finnish immigrants. The East End section of Fort William was a combination of the residential
and economic centre of the Finnish community in that portion of Thunder Bay. However, the
Finnish community never developed in Fort William the way it did in Port Arthur.
The Bay Street area was home to the earliest Finnish immigrants and this was the
Finnish community’s economic centre. Many early Finnish immigrants set up businesses on and
around Bay Street to cater to the Finnish community, often dealing with customers in the
mother tongue. Prior to the First World War, the Bay Street area was also home to many
rooming houses. After World War 1, many of these houses were maintained by Finnish
immigrants who saw the need to have places available for the workers to live when on leave
from the camps. Most of these rooming houses have been replaced by either retail stores or
businesses, or have been developed into apartments. These Finnish stores and organizations
are still able to cater to the community in both languages.” ®
One building that is worthy of notice is the Finnish Labour Temple at 314 Bay Street.
Completed in 1910, it was owned by the Finnish Building Company and housed the Port Arthur
” ° Kouhi, “Labour and Finnish Immigration,” 35. ” ’ Kouhi, “Finnish Immigrants,” Appendix IV, 62-63. ” ® The use of the Finnish language on Bay Street is apparent to any person who walks down the street and listens. This is of great help to those Finns who immigrated in their elderly years and have not mastered the English language. Although most Finns in Thunder Bay have learned to survive using the English language, it is a joy to some to be able to order a meal or go grocery shopping using their mother tongue.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46 Finnish Socialist Local, and the Finnish Publishing Company. It was also available to other
Finnish organizations. The Finnish Publishing Company moved out in the late summer of 1912
into a building of its own next door to the Labour Temple.^"^ Eventually, a co-operative
restaurant, the Hoito, opened in the basement of the building, and continues there today.
Outside the city boundaries, the Finnish areas of settlement in the Thunder Bay region
have remained quite consistent, much like their urban counterparts. Although there has been a
large urbanization of the Finnish-Canadians, there still remains a relatively large rural
population of Finnish people. The townships which have had a consistent Finnish presence
since the first Finnish settlement in Lybster township was created in 1900,^"" have been
McGregor, Gorham, Ware, McIntyre, Dawson Road Lots, Conmee, and Forbes. The Finnish
settlement in the Lybster Township was due in part to the development of the Port Arthur,
Duluth and Western Railway and in part to the Silver Mountain Mine, which was located in the
area.^'*® It has also been stated by Eija Kettunen-Hujanen in “A Wretched Life or a Journey to
Wealth,” that the community known as Tarmola (now within Gorham Township) was the
settlement of choice for the Finnish farmers from Varpaisjarvi.^'*®
A pattern became evident when the 1931 Census of Canada showed the concentration
of the Finns in the rural townships of Gorham, Ware, and Lybster to be the largest in the area.
Gorham had 93 percent of its population claiming to be Finnish (530 Finns), while Ware (417)
and Lybster (407) had a Finnish population of 90 percent. Lappe, an area within the Gorham
and Ware townships, was one of the largest and best known Finnish enclaves. In the 1951
Census of Canada, this concentration had fallen but was still high enough to attract the newer
third wave Finns to the area. It was still considered to be “one of the most culturally significant
Metsaranta, 182, Bay Street Project 2 , 17. Rasmussen, “Finnish Settlement in Thunder Bay,” 45. Eija Kettunen-Hujanen, “A Wretched Life or a Journey to Wealth: Adaptation of Immigrants from Savo, North Karelia and Kainuu to Canada, 1918-1930,”Journal of Finnish Studies 4, no.2 (December 2000): 50.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47 of the Finnish communities surrounding Thunder Bay, in that it formed a cohesive cultural unit,
with most essential services available in Finnish, a rural equivalent of the area surrounding Bay
Street.”^'*’’ To date, the Lappe Lutheran Church located on the corner of Dog Lake Road and
Ware Concession Road 4 offers a Finnish service separate from the English service on Sunday
morningsJ"® While these townships have retained some of their Finnish population, the
urbanization of the Finns in the area can be seen by the fact that, in the 1981 Canada Census,
the urban Finnish population had risen by 45 percent/"® “This trend towards urbanization did not
mean that the Finns were necessarily losing their traditional affection for the land; in most
instances, the Finns in urban centres had access to summer camps and the ever-present
sauna.”^®“
Although there were new opportunities for Finnish immigrants in the Thunder Bay area,
many chose to continue in their traditional lifestyle, even in the building of their homes and
small farmsFinnish farms were mainly subsistence operations, located on the most marginal
areas, but were aided greatly by supplemental incomes from forestry, mining, and
construction/®®
Canada, as a whole, has offered immigrants many advantages over their homelands,
whether this was economic survival, political freedom, social opportunities or even the search
Cindy Danton, “Finland to Lappe, Ontario: Selma Lam pu Hynna (1905-1991),” Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society Papers and Records 20 (1992): 30. It was not until 1970 that services were held in English. Until that time, Finnish was the language of the services. Dallen J. Timothy, “The Decline of Finnish Ethnic Islands in Rural Thunder Bay,” The Great Lakes Geographer 2, no.2 (1995): 52. In 1931, only 47.19 percent of the Thunder Bay District’s Finns were found in the two cities of Port Arthur and Fort William, where as in 1981, 91.67 percent of the District’s Finns were living within the City of Thunder Bay. Saarinen, Pattern and impact of Finnish Settlement in Canada, 8. For more information on the similarities between the Finnish farms in rural Thunder Bay and the farms in Finland, refer to Rasmussen, “Finnish Settlement in Thunder Bay.” Rasmussen, “Finnish Settlement in Thunder Bay,” 47.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 fo r adventure. This Is particularly true of the Finns who chose to immigrate to Canada.^®® All of
these factors have played a role in the waves of Finnish immigration, although, the search for a
better economic survival has been the push factor which urged most Finnish immigrants during
the final third wave. Once the war had been fought in Europe and with the economy in Finland
in chaos, many immigrants found their economic salvation in the labour fields of Canada,
especially the forests of Northwestern Ontario.
'®® Although at present Finns are much more likely to be immigrating to Sweden than to Canada or the United States, there is still a small amount of immigrant movement. Most now come via work permits. It is noted by Jouni Korkiasaari and Ismo Soderling that the “migrant of today is well-educated and often plans on staying only a limited period abroad.” Korkiasaari and Soderling, “Finnish Emigration and Immigration after World War II,” (Institute of Migration, 2002). Accessed 12 May 2003, available from http://www. utu. fi/erill/instmigr/art/finnmigr. htm, 4.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter Four
Finnish Immigrant Employment
Before tfie Second World War, when Finnish immigrants embarked on their new life in
the Thunder Bay area, a majority of them were employed in the forestry and mining sectors. It
has been noted that logging and mining were considered to be well-suited to the Finnish
immigrants because many of them had arrived in Canada as skilled woodsmen or physical
labourers, with much experience doing these jobs in Finland.’®" Other jobs were available as
well, such as tailoring, carpentry, waitressing or cooking. However, bush work made up a large
portion of the available jobs for men in the area and, without the English language, Finnish
immigrants were limited in their opportunities. After the war, however, that changed and most
Finns who came to Canada had skills and a higher education. By 1978, 74 percent of Finns fell
into the highly skilled and professional categories.’®® These immigrants, once they mastered
English, were accepted into the hierarchy of industrial life.
FORESTRY SECTOR
As it was prior to the war, the forest sector was able to employ a large majority of the
immigrants after the end of hostilities. In September 1946, forestry officials expanded their
labour pool to meet the increased need in the markets by urging the Canadian government to
“consider a policy of selective immigration from Great Britain and other countries of northern
Europe, of men calculated to fit into our economy and climate and willing to work in the
industry.”^®® The hard working Finns fit nicely into this category of wanted workers.
Following the Second World War, the forestry sector was in a tumultuous time. There
’®" Timothy, 48. ’®® Lindstrom-Best, The Finns in Canada, 15. ’®® Ian Radforth, Bushworkers and Bosses: Logging in Northern Ontario, 1900-1980 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 163.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50 were increased demands for pulp and paper products, but tfie market was being provided not
only by northern Ontario but also by British Columbia and the southern United States. With the
majority of the easily available wood in northern Ontario already harvested, the loggers had to
look at taking the second-rate timber or building roads into the uncut tracts further afield. This
left operators unsure of the future. There was also a labour shortage in the forests after the
war, caused by the veterans who now had more skills with which they were able to find skilled
jobs rather than have to brave the wilderness for forestry jobs. Also, those men who had been
employed in the forest industry and did not fight in the war, found war-time employment in the
mining sector, which had experienced a boom during the war, and did not return to forestry.
This labour shortage was seen as a reason to open up the doors to immigrants who
were willing to take these less desirable jobs. Many of these immigrants were Finns, eager to
leave the uneasy economic situation in Finland in search of a better place. Moreover, “the
forests have always played a significant role in the Finns’ mental and material existence.’”®’' The
forest industry offered those Finns an ideal solution; hard work for good money.’®® There were
also many Finns already employed in the logging camps who were able to convince their family
and friends to make the trip to Canada because of the great opportunities to make enough
money during the winters to be able to become farmers for the summer season.’®®
The Finns, used to hard work and harsh living conditions, made the best of the situation.
Prior to the widespread mechanization of the lumber industry, the camps were not comfortable,
homey places. According to one Finnish bush worker, the bunkhouses were
made of logs, even the floor is made of round logs. We never
’®’’ “Farm Forestry Statistics,” (European Forest Institute, July 1998.) Accessed 8 July 2000, available from http://www.mmm.fi/tike/farm-forestry/finland.htm ’®® Arvi Tuuamen, a Finnish-Canadian who worked in the Algoma district, recalled that the work expected of him was often “tantamount to torture...[he] often found [himself] crying, it was such strenuous work.” Radforth, Bushworkers and Bosses, 55. ’®® Radforth states that nearly three-quarters of the total harvest was the work of seasonally employed wage earners. Each fall, bosses would hire men, and send them to camps scattered throughout the forest, and the employees would spend the fall and winter felling trees, sawing logs, and hauling them out of the woods. Radforth, Bushworkers and Bosses, 26.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51 have time to smooth them down, after all we don’t stay many winters in the same camp, sometimes we have to move deeper into the forest. Takes a little practice to learn to walk on those floors of ours because there are deep cracks between the logs. The boys call them ditches. Of course they fill up in no time, it’s hard to sweep such floors, especially with spruce branches shedding their needles. We use spruce branches for our mattresses on the bunks that line the walls. Nice and comfortable when fresh, but the boys don’t seem to get around to cutting fresh ones, what with being so doggone tired at the end of the day. Anyway, the dry sticks seem almost too comfortable to bother. I tell the boys it takes know-how to arrange one’s bones on the branches.’®®
However, at the same time, giant leaps were being made in the mechanization of the
industry. New advances in power chain saws and transportation methods were allowing for the
easier cutting and moving of the timber. The manufacturing of one-man power saws, by Stihl
and Husqvarna, gave the lumberjacks the freedom to work individually in the cutting and piling
of the timber, instead of the large teams’®’ who were found in the forests before the Second
World War. As Donald MacKay has observed, “once the power saw came in it was more
individual, every man for himself. So it changed the lumbering.’”®® Also, the development of the
skidder for transporting the timber out, decreased the need for the larger crews and the
necessity of horses. The skidder increased the distances from the felled timber to the roadway
used to transport it to the mill, thus reducing expenses and the necessity for major road
building. Trucks to haul the timber into town were becoming commonplace because of the
increased distance from major waterways to send the timber down, as they had done in the
past. Now instead of having huge camps of men cutting for months in one area, the crews were
able to cut massive amounts of wood for transport in a shorter time, moving quicker through the
’®° Alii Gronlund Schneider, The Finnish Baker’s Daughters (Toronto: The Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1986), 46-47. ’®’ The teams included the cutting crew (choppers, buckers, ressers, liners, scorers and hewers), the skidding crew (teamsters, pliers, deckers, rollers, horses and oxen), and the river crews (drivers and powder monkeys). Richard A. Rajala, “The Forest Industry of Eastern Canada: An Overview,” in 0 . Ross Silversides, Broadaxe to Fiying Shear: The Mechanization of Forest Harvesting East of the Rockies (Ottawa: National Museum of Science and Technology, 1997), 128-30. ’®® Donald MacKay, The Lumberjacks (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1978), 88.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52 areas of usable timber.
With the introduction of chain saws and mechanical loading equipment in the late 1950s,
however, the forestry industry underwent change. No longer were large crews of men needed
to ensure the timber company’s annual haulage was cut and shipped. In the earlier days of
Swede saw’®® and horse power, the large influx of immigrant men and women could find
employment in the large bush camps situated all over Northwestern Ontario. After the war,
Finns were still found employed in the forestry sector, helping their fellow countrymen to learn
the skills and procedures of the jobs. Even today, one can find numerous Finns employed in the
forest industry. Many have started their own businesses, contracting their services to the larger
forestry corporations, and some are currently employed in the same jobs as their ancestors,
felling and transporting the trees to the mills.
The Finns were well known in the forest industry for two main reasons; that they were
not afraid of hard work or the harsh working environment, and that many of them were radicals
who used their socialist ideas to further unionization. The Finns were ranked among the best
producers among the logging camps and many company managers hired whole gangs of
Finnish workers, who preferred to work with men who spoke the same language or shared a
similar background. It can be argued that Finnish bush workers were among the top producers
because it was a tradition within Finland to work in the forests. In her dissertation, Hanna
Snellman “demonstrates that the lumberjack of Lapland could at any time have changed places
with his colleague in East Karelia, Norway or even Canada. He would have had no difficulty at •
all slipping into the routine.’”®" With their work ethic and ideas of cleanliness, Finns were assets
The Swede saw is a Finnish invention which was popularized by the Finns working in the bush camps and is made up of a narrow blade, which could be rolled for easier transportation, and the crossbars, which could be easily fashioned from wood found in the forest. This saw was widely used until the lightweight chain saws were developed in the 1950s. Ian Radforth, “Finnish Lumber Workers in Ontario, 1919-46," Polyphony 3, no.2 (Fall 1981): 27. ’®" Sanna Kaisa Spoof, “Lumberjack Culture in Finnish Lapland, A Review,” Ethnologia Scandinavica 27 (1997): 172.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53 fo r any lumber company. Saarinen explains this phenomenon best in his book, stating that
“studies showed that Finns were better at cleaning up their cutting area, which facilitated
subsequent steps in the logging process, and that they kept their camps tidier.”’®®
Another area which added to the Finn’s reputation for cleanliness was the regular
bathing of the men and women of the camps. In Bushworkers and Bosses, Ian Radforth
explained that
Only in the camps where Finns worked was it easy to bathe. Whenever a few Finns moved into a camp, they would build a sauna; Lakehead logging contractors provided steam baths as a matter of course. ‘I wouldn’t have a camp without one,’ recalled Oscar Styffe, a Port Arthur pulpwood operator. It was a simple matter to throw up a rough log cabin, add a barrel stove, and call it a sauna. Siami Hormavirta, the widow of Hans, an Algoma jobber, remembers how every evening in winter and twice a week in warm weather, the chore boy would light the sauna fire and set a great cauldron of water to boil. Some sixty men enjoyed taking a hot bath every evening.’®®
The forestry sector had, in the past, employed many young immigrant men who had
socialist roots in the old country. One of the most famous Finns who foundemployment in the
Ontario forests was Oskari Tokoi.’®’' As a result of the political nature of their homeland, the
Finnish immigrants had many political opinions which couid be deveioped more thoroughly in
the new country. These immigrants brought with them strong and sometimes divergent political
beliefs from the old country, which often gave rise to disruptive influences among the Finns as
well as upon the rest of Canadian society.’®® Before the Second World War, these Finnish
’®® Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 183. ’®® Radforth, Bushworkers and Bosses, 92-93. ’®^ Tokoi was the prime minister of the socialist government which ruled for a few short weeks during the Finnish Civil War in 1918. Since he had sided with the communist supporters, he had to flee in exile to Canada. There, Tokoi and some of his cabinet members worked in a logging camp near New Liskeard. They were only in Canada for a short while before migrating to the United States. Ian Radforth, “Finnish Radicalism and Labour Activism in the Northern Ontario Woods,” in A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers, and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s-1960s, ed. Franca lacovetta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 297. ’®® Saarinen, Pattern and Impact of Finnish Settlement in Canada, 8. Saarinen also explains that since “the wealth of the nation [Finland] was unevenly distributed among its citizens [and] the country was also characterized by a large landless peasantry, these conditions eventually gave rise to strong socialistic movements in Finland.”
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 radicals’®® were instrumental in organizing strikes against the lumber companies and
establishing unions within the forestry sector, paving the way for their Finnish brothers and
sisters in the future. After the war, forestry was still seen as a preferred employment for the
Finns. One of the contractors operating in the Thunder Bay area, Y.W. Nelson, hired mainly
Finns for his camps.”’® He believed that the Finns were excellent bush workers.
Prior to the 1950s, the average length of continuous employment in a logging camp
within the boreal forest was 44 working days, with the average productivity 0.7 cords per day”’’.
Since each logger was paid by piece-rate, the more lumber they could cut, the more money
they would make. Also, cutting the trees and stacking the cords was seen as the best-paying
and most prestigious job in the lumber industry.”’® Thus, the Finns were “especially keen on
piece work because they believed their excellent woods skills were more justly rewarded under
such a system.””’® In the decade after the war, the loggers began to recognize the benefits of
mechanization. The workers no longer faced as many day-to-day dangers once equipment was
enclosed, such as the feller-bunchers and skidders. They saw the power saws as “relatively
inexpensive in relation to the increase in earnings they provided, they gave the worker control
over his productivity, and they were useful outside the forest, therefore worth owning.’”^"
Radforth tells the story of William Ritokoski. He was “a physically powerful Finn who immigrated
’®® Radicals such as A.T. Hill who tried to bring unionization to the bushworkers of Ontario and Viljo Rosvall and John Voutilainen, two union men rumoured to have been murdered by White loggers. For more information, read Satu Repo, “Rosvall and Voutilainen; Two Union Men Who Never Died," Labour/Le Travailleur 8/9 (1981-2): 179-202, William Ekiund, “Labour and Cultural Organizations of Finnish Canadians,” in Finns In North America, ed. Michael G. Kami et al. (Turku, Finland: Institute of Migration, 1988), 236-49, and also Ian Radforth, “Finnish Radicalism and Labour Activism in the Northern Ontario Woods,” in A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers, and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s- 1960s, ed. Franca lacovetta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 306-7. ”'® Interview with Airi (Sipila) Rathje, Thunder Bay, 2002. ”’’ A standard cord contains 128 stacked cubic feet and generally implies a stack with a vertical cross section 4 feet X 4 feet and a length of 8 feet with a small percentage extra in height to allow for settling. Milda Danys, DP: Lithuanian Immigration to Canada After the Second World War (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of'Ontario, 1986), 97. ”’® Radforth, Bushworkers and Bosses, 75. Silversides, 22. The power saws were also useful to the loggers around the farm or rural home in the production of firewood, fenceposts and other building materials.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55 to Algoma in the early 1950s, [and recalled] that he worked very hard to produce three cords a
day with a bucksaw; after purchasing a chainsaw he worked very hard to produce five cords a
day.””’® Gradually, the mechanical changes in the industry changed it into a full time
employment opportunity. Instead of being limited to winter, the lumberjacks were able to cut,
skid and transport the wood to the mills during every season, not waiting for the spring thaw for
the transportation. They became full time loggers, not loggers and farmers.
Many of the practices in forestry regeneration and conservation have been developed in
Finland and used within the forests of other countries, like Canada. One reason for this is the
private ownership of land in Finland, as opposed to the public ownership in Canada. In Finland,
three-quarters of the wood used by industry comes from private forests.’^® This ‘family forestry’
puts individuals in charge of the growth and maintenance of the forests, as well as the
harvesting of the wood. Each owner is informed by the government and forest industry when to
cut, when to replant and when to thin out the areas. In Canada, the provinces have jurisdiction
over resources. In Ontario, the Ministry of Natural Resources has started to put the onus of
responsibility for these tasks on the company doing the logging. The forest industry is beginning
to develop into the profitable and renewable resource industry like that which is found in
Finland. With the help of the many Finnish immigrants who moved to Canada and who had
been raised with ‘family forestry,’ the forest industry continues to grow and flourish.
Like their families and friends in Finland, some of the Finnish immigrant women joined
their male counterparts in the forestry sector. The pay for women working in the forests was
much more than they could make in town but the living conditions were harsher, which Finnish
women seemed to be able to cope with quite readily. In her book Under the Northern Lights,
Nelma Sillanpaa recounts how harsh the conditions in the northern logging camps could be:
’^® Radforth, Bushworkers and Bosses, 205. ’^® Ownership is divided over a broad spectrum of the population, every fifth Finnish family owning some forest, which the state helps them to manage. “Forestry,” (www.forest.fi. 7 July 2000.) Accessed 8 July 2000, available from http://www.forest.fi/metsa_suomi/Forest.nsf/wwwPages/200_e.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56 “Mother had to cook for seventy-five men there. My mother worked seven days a week in that
heat around a huge wood-burning stove.’”” Before the Second World War, the Finn women
were among the only women found in the bush camps” ® and they enjoyed the respect of the
men in the camps, who accepted the women because they were doing traditional female jobs.
After the war, many more women were getting jobs as cooks and cookees in the bush camps
but the Finns were still the most highly regarded; “Perhaps the most celebrated cooks in
northern Ontario were the Finnish women whose delicious meals and spotlessly clean
cookhouses earned them wide acclaim.”” ® The Finnish women would cook such traditional
Finnish dishes as liha mojakka and kala mojakka.^^° They also brewed a lot of coffee {kahvia)
and baked pu//a.’®’
Another job in the camps which attracted many women, especially Finnish immigrant
women, was the laundry. This job involved washing the clothes of the bush workers and the
laundry of the cooks and cookees that was created in the kitchen. Although in today’s society,
this job is not thought of with much respect, in the bush camps, the laundress was a very
appreciated woman. She earned her own living quarters and usually had her children living with
her in the camp.’®®
The men learned to appreciate the skills of the Finnish women, which made the hard
work and harsh conditions seem more tolerable. A great number of these bush working Finnish
women stayed in the camps after marrying a fellow bush worker. They would raise their children
in the camp until they became of an age to attend school, and then they were sent into town to
live with relatives and attend school while the parents continued to work in the forest.
’” Nelma Sillanpaa, Under the Northern Lights: My Memories of Life in the Finnish Community of Northern Ontario (Ottawa: Museum of Civilization, 1995), 25-26. ”'® Only two and a fialf percent of the work force in the forest industry was female. MacKay, 211. ”’® Radforth, Bushworkers and Bosses, 101. ’®° Meat stew and fish stew made with potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage and spices. ’®’ A sweet coffee bread made with cardamon and coated with sugar syrup. ’®® Interview with Airi Rathje, Thunder Bay, 2002.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 By the mid-1970s, the forest industry had undergone many major changes; no longer
were the men and women living in log bunk-houses and walking into the forest to cut down
trees, one by one. The new camps now looked more like trailer parks, with trailers for living,
cooking, and relaxing.’®® Some of the camps now included recreational facilities, maintenance
shops, water systems, and generator trailers for electricity. The loggers were bussed to the
area in which they were working and the conditions were not so harsh.
Also, by this time, the forest industry was realizing that, in order to continue to have the
forest for their lumber and pulp needs, reforestation was a necessity. The lumber companies, in
conjunction with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), began to reforest the areas
which they were cutting. This new approach to forestry created some new jobs for unskilled and
young workers. Finnish immigrants took to this new employment readily, with whole families
taking contracts. As the MNR gradually placed the onus for reforestation on the companies who
were doing the cutting, the ‘family forestry’ practices of the Finns were overshadowed by bigger
companies who could accomplish the work faster and for less money. The lumber companies
began to hire sub-contractors, such as Brinkman Reforestation, Broland Reforestation, and
Wilderness Reforestation. These sub-contractors in turn hired students who needed the money
to pay tuition for their education. The children of Finnish immigrants are often found planting
trees, following in their parents’ footsteps. Since many of the immigrants had found a start in
the forest industry, it was seen as a place for their children to start as well.
Another occupation that was very popular with Finnish immigrant men was carpentry.
The Finns were good at working with wood, and constructed some impressive buildings. Many
Finnish immigrant men found employment in the construction of houses and businesses which
were springing up in the Thunder Bay area in the years following the Second World War. These
’®® This move also saved the companies money. Radforth, in Bushworkers and Bosses, claims that once the cafeterias eliminated cookees, the companies saved between 15 and 25 percent. Radforth, Bushworkers and Bosses, 172.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 car penters used many techniques that were found in Finland, an example of technology
transfer. For example, the corner style of log buildings, where the corners were dovetailed or
lock-notched to decrease the amount of filling needed between the logs to ensure a tight fit,
was adapted to meet Canadian conditions. The Finns’ ability to work with wood and to bring out
its natural beauty is evident in many Finnish homes. Cedar and hardwoods have been used on
the walls, floors, and ceilings to create a relaxed atmosphere. It has been said that the Finns
preferred to work with “hewn rather than round logs and utilized moss and oakum instead of
clay for insulation. Considerable technical expertise accompanied the erection of buildings.’”®"
The knowledge of such wood workings was important to the Finnish carpenters, who took pride
in their work. These immigrant carpenters were like their countrymen in the forests, well known
for their work.
FINNISH IMMIGRANT WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT
Unlike the men, who had to venture far afield for employment, the majority of the
immigrant women could find employment at or near their homes. In rural farming families, the
women tended the livestock and the house, while the men were involved in agricultural labour
during the summer and off to the bush camps in the winter. The women who lived within the
urban setting were able to find work as clerks, waitresses, domestics, cooks, and assistants in
the local businesses and restaurants.
In the years prior to the Depression, domestic work employed the majority of Finnish
immigrant women. Finnish women took pride in their work, which afforded them the luxury of
independence.’®® Even within the immigrant community, this work was seen as “reputable [and]
’®" Saarinen and Tapper, 179. ’®® Marilyn Barber, Immigrant Domestic Servants in Canada (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1991), 18.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 well paid."’®® After the Second World War, the demand for domestic workers increased and
immigrants from Northern Europe were classified as better workers and thus were allowed into
Canada at a higher rate. National Employment Service officers also noted that “Canadian
employers had become more choosy in their applications [for domestics] and usually specified
that domestics should come from Northern Europe.’”®^ Once Finland was taken off the
restricted immigration list in 1947, single women were recruited and brought to Canada to fill
the many gaps in the domestic service industry.
Finnish women who immigrated into the domestic service industry had more opportunity
than those who went into the forest industry to learn the language and culture of the new
country. They lived with a family, and generally, Finnish women would be immersed in the
English language on a daily basis. This immersion helped to accelerate the maid’s knowledge
of the language, whereas the Finnish bush workers often worked in camps and crews of their
fellow countrymen, using the Finnish language as the primary working language. Before the
Second World War, these domestics would live in the household where they were employed,
and close proximity to Canadian culture made it nearly impossible for them not to be affected by
it. However, after the war, domestic workers were often hired as day workers, living their own
lives in apartments or boarding houses after a day’s work. It was during this time that the
English language classes offered within the community Increased in popularity for new
immigrants.
Within the Finnish community in Thunder Bay, there were many other employment
opportunities for women, whether single or married. The co-operative restaurant on Bay Street,
the Hoito, employed many immigrant women as waitresses, cooks, and cleaning staff. Above
’®® Varpu Lindstrom, “’I Won’t Be a Slave!’: Finnish Domestics in Canada, 1911-1930,” in A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers, and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s-1960s, ed. Franca lacovetta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 175. ’®” Franca lacovetta. Such Hardworking People: Italian Immigrants in Postwar Toronto (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992), 42-43.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 the Hoito, the Finlandia Club hired Finnish women to waitress, bartend, and clean. There were
also many Finnish stores; Lauri’s Menswear, The Finnish Book Store, and the People’s Co-op,
which needed clerks and other employees. As previously mentioned, the Finnish community in
Thunder Bay was well known for its ability to cater to all Finnish immigrants. Therefore, the
newer immigrants were more likely to get a job in the Finnish community until they were able to
converse efficiently in English and look for employment outside of the community.
OTHER EMPLOYMENT SECTORS
Other employment areas which attracted third wave immigrants were “white-collar
fields.’” ®® Some of the more educated immigrants found employment in the education, health,
law, and financial sectors. Many of the elementary schools in the Thunder Bay region have
teachers who are either immigrants themselves, or they are children or grand-children of
immigrants. Other Finns have become university and college professors, librarians, archivists,
and administrators.’®® As is typical of the immigrant experience, the children of those third wave
newcomers experienced educational success.
The health sector also attracted Finnish immigrants and their children. Within the
Thunder Bay region, there are many doctors, nurses, chiropractors, dentists, and pharmacists
of Finnish ancestry. This provides a positive aspect for older immigrants, who still feel much
more comfortable conversing in their mother tongue, having health care professionals able to
explain everything more thoroughly. As part of the alternative health care field, there is one
notable Finnish-based centre. The Kangas Sauna building on Oliver Road is home to the
Cranton Wellness Centre, housing a chiropractor/naturopath, massage therapy, and holistic
health services. Also, the Healing Arts Centre on May Street houses some Finnish holistic
’®® Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 217. ’®® For example, at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Raija Warkentin (Anthropology), Jari Leinonen (Finnish Studies), Vivian Sharp (nee Nyysonen-Archivist, Librarian) and even the past Registrar, Pentti Paularinne, are all of Finnish descent.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 health care practlcloners.
Aside from the education and health fields, Finns also entered accounting,
administration, investment, the legal profession, and real estate.’®® As well, many Finns are
entrepreneurs. Saarinen states in Between a Rock and a Hard Place that “there was a growing
tendency for both new immigrants and native-born Finns to open their own businesses and to
seek independent professional careers.’”®’ In 1980, a list of all the Finnish Businesses in
Thunder Bay was published by the Canadan L/uf/sef.’®® The list consisted of 53 businesses,
many of which are still around to this day. There are the obvious enterprises; The Finnish Book
Store, Finn-tastic, and Kivela Bakery, but there are also unique businesses such as Mari-1
Furniture, Custom Hydraulics, DenCorp Inc. (building materials), and the Lappe Ski Centre. The
Lappe Ski Centre, owned by Reijo Fuiras, is a recreational site for skiers of all ages and
abilities. It has provided many Finns (and non-Finns, too) with the opportunity to cross-country
ski, which has deep roots within Scandinavian culture.
In the City of Thunder Bay, there was also another employment opportunity for
immigrants interested in journalism. For most newly arrived Finns, having a newspaper
published in their own language compensated for their lack of literacy in English. Luckily for the
new immigrants, there were more Finnish language papers being distributed in their new
country than in its southern neighbour. “In Canada, the press is stronger than in the United
States, due to the influx of new immigrants in the 1950s who are still subscribers.’”®® These
papers offered the Finns help through the transition of immigration. The newspaper, Canadan
Uutiset (The Canadian News), not only offered the chance for Finnish immigrants to find
employment, either with the paper or through its advertising, but also allowed them to learn
’®® Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 217. ’®’ Ibid., 212. ’®® TBFCHS Collection, MG 8, Series 0, Box 2, Folder 4, Item 1, Canadan Uutiset, 25, kesakuuta, 1980, #26, “Tutustu Thunder Bayhin.” ’®® Mari Niemi, “Hunger or Yearning for Freedom? Migration from South Ostrobothnia to North America,” Journal of Finnish Studies 2, no.2 (December 1998): 80.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 about current events in their native language. The paper was established in Port Arthur in
November 1915 and was Finnish-Canada’s first non-socialist newspaper. The business
community in Port Arthur was very supportive of the newspaper, through which they could
reach out to more of the immigrants.’®" The Canadan Uutiset has gone through many changes
over the years, like English articles added, but the ideas are still the same. In 2000, the paper
expanded its horizons and amalgamated with the Amerikan Uutiset. It now publishes two
papers, the Canadan Uutiset (once a month) and a weekly called The Finnish Update (Pohjois-
Amerikan L/uf/sef).’®® Local Finnish businesses advertise in the paper, and local Finnish
immigrants read the paper and shop at the businesses. The cultural events happening within
the Finnish community are also advertised, helping to keep the Finnish culture alive.
THE FINNISH COMMUNITY IN THE THUNDER BAY AREA
Not only were the immigrants involved in the community; so were their children. These
children were enrolled in the local schools in order to learn English and have better lives than
their parents. Children were encouraged to continue their education until they were able to
attain a job by which they could support their own families. While some had trouble adapting to
school and only wanted to get out and start working, quitting school at the age of sixteen to find
employment in the forest industry or other industry which accepted employees who had not
received their high school diploma, others took their parent’s advice and stayed in school, going
on to college or university. One of the respondents to the questionnaire stated that his brother
intended to quit formal schooling after grade eight to work in the bush. The teacher insisted
that, if he did not continue into high school, he would not pass the eighth grade. The parents
sided with the teacher and the boy was talked into completing high school as well.’®® As the next
’®" Arja Pilli, “The Origins of Canadan Uutiset," Polyphony 9, no.2 (1987): 39. ’®® The online edition of the paper can be seen at httD://canadan.uutiset.com or the editorial staff reached at [email protected]. ’®® Interview with Arvo Puumala, Thunder Bay, 2002.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 ge neration of children were also encouraged to continue with their education, their
acclimatisation to Canadian culture proceeded. While these immigrant children still hold onto
the old values and traditions, they have learned to adapt them into the culture of the greater
society.
There are many Finnish cultural organizations in the Thunder Bay area to keep the old
traditions and the immigrant’s ‘Finnishness’ alive. These organizations are a cornerstone in the
Finnish community. It has been stated that “it is first and foremost in the religious and
educational spheres that the Finns have developed an ordered manner of living which has been
their strength.’”®^ When looking through the course calendar at Lakehead University in Thunder
Bay, one can immediately tell that the Finnish community in Thunder Bay is large. There are
courses which cater to the community, such as Finnish language and Finnish culture and
history classes. The Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society collection is housed in
the Chancellor Paterson Library’s fifth floor Archives.’®® Many groups meet at the Finlandia Club
at 314 Bay Street to hold meetings and events. These include the Kalevan Naiset Ainikin Tupa
No.55 (The Ladies of Kalevala), and the Kalevan Ritarit Sampo Maja No.51 (The Knights of the
Kalevala). There is also a sports club run by the Finns for those interested in athletics. Reipas
Sports Club {Urheiluseura Reipas) is active in activities such as pesopallo (the Finnish style of
baseball), shooting, running, and skiing. Other Finnish groups also use the Reipas clubhouse
called Tapiola, found just outside of the city of Thunder Bay on Pento Road.
Within the last twenty years or so, the Finnish community has experienced a resurgence
of community awareness and activities. Second, third, and fourth generation Finns are starting
to ask questions about their heritage and the Finnish community in Thunder Bay is stepping up
’®’’ Rafael Engelberg, “Finnish Emigration to the United States and Canada,” (The Genealogical Society of Finland, 1999.) Accessed 7 October 2002, available from http://www.aeneaioaia.fi/emi/art/article187e.htm ’®® The parent society, the Finnish Canadian Historical Society, was established on 2 July 1944 in Sudbury and was called the Finnish United Historical Society of Canada. The Society changed its name in 1945. Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 167.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 to answer them. There is now a museum housed within the Finlandia Club building which
explains more thoroughly the Finnish presence in Thunder Bay and its activities. The museum
is well equipped to become a centre for teaching Finnish culture. For the Finnish community of
Thunder Bay, this expanding interest and knowledge is helping to keep its culture alive and
thriving.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter Five
Immigration and Assimilation
For this project, questionnaires were designed and distributed to a number of Finnish
immigrants who settled in the Thunder Bay area after the Second World War.’®® There were 30
questionnaires sent out to various people, many of whose names were suggested to the
researcher by other Finnish Canadians. Interviews with some of these respondents and other
Finns were also conducted. The questionnaires asked the immigrants their reasons for
immigrating from Finland and for settling in this area. Not only were the immigrants asked for
their reasons, they were also asked about the make-up of their family, whether or not they
immigrated with them or brought them over later. The respondents attitudes upon immigration
were also questioned. Immigrants who leave their homeland with the attitude that they are
starting new lives in a new land differ from those who believe that they will return to the
homeland after a time. Assimilation into Canada and the Thunder Bay area was also
questioned. Again, the attitudes of the immigrants varied, but all believed that they have
assimilated into Canadian society while still maintaining their ‘Finnishness’.
The respondents had come primarily during the third wave of immigration after the
Second World War and were from a varied age group, some immigrating while young with their
families, and others making the decision to immigrate later in their lives. Those who were
brought by their families at a young age all claimed that their reasons for immigrating were
because of the family. Those who immigrated on their own came not only to be reunited with
family and friends but also for economic and political reasons as well as for ‘adventure.’ The
interviews were done to enrich the information which emerged from the questionnaires, with
particular emphasis on the effects of immigration and assimilation.
By analyzing the questionnaire answers, one is able to see the complexities associated
199See. Appendix 10, Finnish-Canadian Immigrant Questionnaires.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 with the migration of the Finnish families. Not every member of the family has the same
answers to the questions and not every member has the same views on life in Canada. In one
example, the eldest son of one family answered that he chose to live in the Thunder Bay area
simply because he was helping to support the family, whereas his mother declared they chose
the area because of the opportunities for working in the bush and because there was a large
Finnish population already settled there. Many respondents who chose the area because their
relatives or friends had already settled there. One such respondent, who had made
arrangements to live with friends in Kaministiquia, Ontario, claimed that he had enough money
and he could have moved back to Finland, but the Canadian lifestyle was more relaxed and fit
better into his ideal lifestyle so he stayed. Two respondents stated that Thunder Bay was their
destination of choice because it was where their husbands were living. This shows the
continuing link which was maintained between the homeland and the newly adopted country;
trips taken back to Finland often resulted in marriages and migration of the new family member
to Canada.
Almost all of the respondents stated that they came directly to the Thunder Bay area
from Finland, with the exception of one who settled in Toronto for five months before heading to
Northwestern Ontario. In that case, the father was in the Thunder Bay area looking for land.
Once the land matter was settled, he sent for the rest of the family who were able to immigrate
to Canada, meet with the son who was in Toronto, and have the whole family move to the rural
area known as Kaministiquia.
These responses differed from the ones researched in the earlier waves of immigration,
when most of the immigrants did not have the Thunder Bay area as their first choice to settle.
Particularly in the first wave, immigrants often did not stay in one place. In many instances they
moved around, searching for the perfect place, sometimes for years before putting roots down
in an area permanently. In the second wave, there were enough Finnish immigrants already
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67 living in the area to have a growing Finnish community, which helped bring the newer
immigrants directly here. The third wave was also able to settle amongst the already
established Finnish community in Thunder Bay and area, making this area practically their only
destination in the New World.
Two-thirds of the respondents answered that they were farmers in Finland prior to
immigrating to Canada. This high percentage of immigrant farmers could lead to further studies
analyzing whether the shrinking size of the farms in Finland had any bearing on the decision to
move to Canada. At the time, the inheritance system of land ownership was creating a
crowded, less productive agriculture within Finland. Traditionally, the eldest son would inherit
the main farmhouse of the parents but the younger siblings would be given a parcel of the land
to work as his own. These younger siblings would either set up their own houses on the land
or continue to live in the main house until their family grew too large. Given the division of land,
each piece became smaller and less able to provide sustenance for a full household. It was at
this point that many of the younger siblings were forced to find jobs as labourers to supplement
the household income. Obviously, many of these younger siblings, when work was not available
in Finland, had to look elsewhere for their livelihood. Immigration to Canada offered a good
solution to that problem, and might be able to offer enough land for family farming as well. The
cheap land that was available in Canada was a pull factor for more than one of the families.
One of the respondents stated that her reason for choosing Canada was that Canada
was seen as being better able to support single mothers, in which group this respondent’s
mother was included. During the first two waves of immigration, Finnish women were able to
find employment as domestic labourers, laundresses, waitresses, and many more blue-collar
jobs judged as suitable. There was pride among Finnish women, who were sought after as
domestic servants. “Finnish maids were in demand...and having a Finnish maid may even have
™ This was most often only the male siblings, as the females would marry outside of the family and join their husbands on his family’s farmland.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 become something of a status symbol.”®®’ During the third wave of immigration, although the
need for domestic labourers had remained steady, there were more jobs to be had in the
growing commercial economy. New jobs now open to immigrant women included clerical work,
the running of small businesses within the home (for example, dressmaking or a beauty salon),
and also as cooks in lumber and mining camps. Often, the newly immigrated Finnish women
would head out to the camps with their husbands and children to live for a greater part of the
year. At the Dog Lake camp run by Y.W. Nelson, Arnold Koivu lived in the camp until he was 6
years old, when he had to leave to attend school.®®®
The respondents who did not immigrate with their families were eighteen years of age or
older. The youngest one at the time of individual immigration was eighteen and was moving to
the Thunder Bay area with her Finnish-Canadian boyfriend, whom she had met in Finland.®®® Of
the respondents involved in family migration, most were younger children and their older
parents. As noted by Varpu Lindstrom-Best, the Finnish immigrants in the third wave came
mostly as family units.®®" During the third wave, the family unit was seen as an important
aspect. One of the respondents stated that his parents moved to Canada so that the children
would have a better chance of getting jobs. The oldest brother was sixteen years old at the time
of immigration, old enough to find employment in Canada. The others needed to learn English,
finish school, and then find jobs.®®®
Roughly half of the immigrants questioned had decided even before their immigration to
stay in Canada for the long term. The other half had a more ambivalent attitude on the length of
their stays with some of them prepared to stay only for a few weeks to a few years, only to end
up staying longer. One of the respondents declared that he could have left whenever he wanted
®°’ Vlrtanen, “Work as a Factor,” 120. ®®® Interview with Airi (Sipila) Rathje, Thunder Bay, 2002. ®®® As mentioned previously, some Finnish-Canadians who visited the homeland came back to Canada with their Finnish born wives or husbands. ®®" Varpu Lindstrom-Best, Finns in Canada (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1985), 11. ®®® Interview with Arvo Puumala, Thunder Bay, 2002.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69 since he was lucky enough to have money saved up, but he decided to stay because the life in
Canada was better than what he had experienced in Finland.®®® Of those who planned on
staying for the short term, a few married a Canadian and stayed. Although many immigrants
had planned to return to Finland, only twenty percent ever did.®®’’ The longer the immigrants
stayed in Canada, the less likely they were to return. Some reasons behind this are the
satisfaction with their new lives in Canada, the friendships they made, and their integration into
Canadian society.
In the period immediately after the second wave of immigration, there was considerable
return migration. This was spurred partly by the Great Depression and lack of employment
opportunities, and Canadian policy. For example, the Canadian government put limits on the
numbers of immigrants allowed into the country and also encouraged those immigrants who
wanted to return to their homelands. Some Finns were also deported as ‘vagrants’ because of
their radicalism.®®®
Other Finns left dreaming of a socialist utopia in Soviet Karelia®®®. Almost every study
done on this phenomenon gives different estimates on the size of the emigration to Soviet
Karelia, which range from two to ten thousand.®’® Reino Kero states that “several political,
economic and propaganda factors were major reasons for the exodus.”®” These left wing Finns
believed Soviet Russia was the country which would be the worker’s paradise in the coming
years and did not want to remain in North America any longer. Many stories surround this group
migration to Karelia, some positive and some negative. These negative reactions can be
®®® Interview with Lauri Penttinen, Thunder Bay, 2002. ®®^ Lindstrom-Best, “Finns in Canada,” Polyphony, 3. ®®® Ibid., 11. ®®® Karelia is an area which has been fought over many times by Finland and Russia. It remains as part of Russia today but is viewed as Finnish by many of the old residents. ®’® Lindstrom-Best estimates 2,000 Finnish-Canadians emigrated and Kero estimates 10,000 Finnish- North Americans emigrated. Lindstrom-Best, “Finns in Canada,” Polyphony, 11 and Reino Kero, “Emigration of Finns from North America to Soviet Karelia in the Early 1930s,” in The Finnish Experience in the Western Great Lakes Region: New Perspectives, eds. Michael G. Kami, Matti E. Kaups, and Douglas J. Ollila, Jr. (Turku, Finland; Institute for Migration,1975), 215. ®” Ibid., 216.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 0 attributed in part to the fact that, in 1935, Josef Stalin began an anti-Finnish campaign. This
campaign was rooted in his notion that the Finnish immigrants arriving in the Karelia area were
attempting to overthrow his control of the area and return it to Finland. There are stories of
people being arrested and terrorized; some just disappeared.®’® Around the same time as the
Stalinist purges began, these group emigrations fell off and no more evidence can be found of
large groups migrating to Soviet Karelia.
This phenomenon of return migration was not as big an issue in the third wave, but it did
occur. There were immigrants who felt life in Finland was better suited to their lifestyles. These
immigrants returned to the homeland after time spent in Canada. Another phenomenon that
existed during the beginning of the third wave was the threat of deportation amongst newly
arrived immigrants. Since immigrants were graded according to a point system®’®, which
allowed the Canadian government a voice in which immigrants were allowed in to the country, it
was reasonable to assume that the government also had a say in which immigrants would be
allowed to stay. In some immigrants’ minds, it was not unreasonable to harbour some feelings
of anxiety where the government was concerned. One of the respondents experienced some
worries over the idea of deportation. He had immigrated with his family when he was still a
young boy but had not attained citizenship by the time he was graduating from high school. One
of his worries was that he was no longer eligible to attain his citizenship with his parents, as he
had married and left home at a young age. Another worry was that after high school he might
have trouble finding a job because he was not a citizen yet. He applied for employment at
various places, one of them the Canadian Armed Forces, which could not hire non-citizens. He
eventually did get employment at Great Lakes Pulp and Paper as an apprentice machinist and
®’® Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 146. ®’® Points were given according to nine criteria. These were: education and training, immigration officer’s assessment, occupational demand, occupational skill, age, arranged or designated employment, knowledge of English or French, relatives, and employment opportunities in area of destination. For further explanations, refer to Green, 41.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 1 he also applied for citizenship and received that as well. This effectively ended his worries
about leaving his new home with his young Canadian family.^’''
The final question dealt with the integration of the immigrant into Canadian society.
Have the immigrants assimilated or merely adapted to the Canadian society? In her book
dealing with Lithuanian Displaced Persons after the Second World War, Milda Danys states:
Assimilation is a complex affair: one may assimilate economically or psychologically or culturally. The degree to which any individual can be said to have assimilated, too, might be judged differently depending on one’s point of view. Does the immigrant feel himself or herself to be a Canadian? Do other Canadians regard the immigrant as a fellow Canadian?”^^®
When asked if they felt comfortable with their lives in Canada, all respondents answered
yes, with a few stating that they felt comfortable but not completely satisfied. If one looked at
the situation objectively, they would see how difficult it must have been, and still is, for the
immigrant, coming from a settled life to a new adventure. Senja Baron, writing about Finnish
immigrants in Australia, says it best: “The Finnish immigrants did not consider themselves as
simply Finns living in Australia, but as sort of hybrids, not entirely Australian but not quite
Finnish either. Just as maintaining Finnish identity was determined by the impossibility of being
Australian, being a migrant Finn was marked by not being like Finns living in Finland.’’^’® This
new life could be seen by any outsider to be unsatisfying.
One respondent, who has expressed dissatisfaction with her command of English,
replied that she was comfortable in Canada and loved her life in this country and would not
want to return to Finland to live, even though the language barrier would not exist there. When
asked if they had returned to Finland to visit or to live, only two respondents had not been back
to the homeland for a visit. Only two respondents had returned to Finland to live because
Interview with Arvo Puumala, Thunder Bay, 2002. Danys, 299. ^^® Senja Baron, “The Finnish Migrant Community in Post-War Melbourne,” Siirtolaisuus-Migration 4 (2000): httD://www.utu.fi/erill/instmiar/art/baron.htm.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 university education was being undertaken in Finland, but both returned to live in Canada. From
these answers, it appears that the length of time living in the Thunder Bay area has affected the
desire to return to the homeland. Becoming comfortable in Canadian society allowed
immigrants to return to Finland for visits, content with their lives and not wanting to return
permanently to their former country. These answers did not conclude that the Finns had
assimilated into the Canadian society, but they showed an adaptation to it. This is also shown
through the organizations which sprang up in the immigrant communities.
THE CULTURE OF FINNISH CANADIANS IN THE THUNDER BAY AREA
In their adopted country, the Finns were quick to establish community organizations
designed to help them integrate into Canadian society and keep Finnish traditions alive. The
Finns, who preferred to “look inward [and] to organize by themselves,”^^^ nurtured their own
traditions brought with them from Finland and sought to maintain a specifically ‘Finnish’ identity.
According to Christine Kouhi, this ‘Finnish’ identity was one which separated them from all other
residents of Thunder Bay.^^® “It is first and foremost in the religious and educational spheres
that the Finns in [Canada] have developed an ordered manner of living which has been their
strength as a special, respected part of the [Canadian] people, while worthily representing the
home country and causing its name to be regarded with esteem among the numerous
competing nations.
During the first two waves of immigration, these organizations were set up in great
numbers and included many labour-related groups, such as the Imatra League, the Socialist
Party of Canada (Port Arthur Finnish Socialist Local #6), and the Fort William Finnish Socialist
John I. Kolehmainen, The Finns in America: A Students’ Guide to Locaiized History (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 1968), 18. Kouhi, “Labour and Finnish Immigration”, 35. This statement was originally made in reference to American society, however, it can be argued that the statement is true in the Canadian society as well. Rafael Engelberg, “Finnish Emigration to the United States and Canada.” Square brackets are my own.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 3 Lo ca l.Another organization developed prior to World War One designed to help Finnish
immigrants to adapt more easily into Canadian society, was the Finnish Organization of
Canada. Its objectives were stated as follows:
1. To assimilate the Finnish speaking people of Canada with the native population by instilling in their minds the benefits of Canadian citizenship, by the teaching of the English language, by disseminating true information about the laws, customs, traditions, history and current events in Canada, and by the lawful and intelligent use of the rights and the duties of Canadian citizenship. 2. To advance the standard of life of the Finnish speaking people of Canada by encouraging and developing co-operative enterprises tending to secure their material interests. 3. To develop the mental faculties of the Finnish speaking people of Canada by the holding of educational lectures, by furthering artistic endeavours, such as singing, music, theatricals, gymnastics, etc., and by maintaining libraries and reading rooms. 4. To own such buildings and other property and to carry on such business as are necessary for the efficient execution of these activities.^®’
There were also groups formed through the churches, the temperance societies, the co
operative movement, the Finnish language press, and the sports community.®®® Many of these
organizations have since faded away into the history books, but others were bolstered by the
arrival of the third wave and continued to thrive, however different their makeup and beliefs.
Examples of these organizations which are found in the Thunder Bay area are seen in the
religious, social, athletic and intellectual spheres.®®®
Religion inspired many organizations. In Canada, there were three main branches of
Lutheranism; the Laestadian (Apostolic), the Suomi Synod, and the offshoot from the Suomi
Synod, the Finnish National Evangelical Lutheran Churches. The Suomi Synod has had
®®° Refer to Metsaranta, ed., Project Bay Street, Chapters 5-7, for a more detailed look at these organizations and their history in the Thunder Bay area. ®®’ Section 2, Chapter 1, Constitution of Finnish Organization of Canada, Subsection 4 having been added when the organization was incorporated in 1923, as cited in P. Mertanen and W. Ekiund, “The Illegal Finnish Organization of Canada, Inc.,” (The Genealogical Society of Finland, 1999.) Accessed 12 May 2003, available from http://www.genealogia.fi/eml/art/article301e.htm. ®®® The existence of these groups demonstrates that the Finns are what Saarinen calls ‘active joiners’. Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 109. ®®® See Appendix 13.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 pe rhaps the largest impact on Finnish-American religious life, establishing a college where
Finnish traditions are kept alive and practised. As Tauri Aaltio notes, “The most important
cultural contribution of the Finnish church in America has probably been the establishment of
Suomi College by the Suomi Synod seventy years ago.''®®" In Canada, the Suomi Synod
became the Finnish Lutheran Synod of Canada. The main congregations of Finnish immigrants
in the Thunder Bay area have been the Anglican, the Laestadian, and the Finnish National
Evangelical Lutheran Churches.®®® Even today, there are Finnish congregations with sermons
preached in both Finnish and English.
Temperance societies were established before the First World War as a result of the
temperance movement in Finland. These societies were organized to reduce alcohol
consumption and provide activities where immigrants could have fun without drinking. By the
third wave, they were no longer in fashion and did not function as they once had. In their way,
these organizations may have had a large effect on the Finnish immigrant population, even
after they folded. The main reason why the temperance movement was able to expand so
rapidly in Finland and within the Finnish immigrant communities was the problem of alcoholism
in the homeland. Fred Singleton puts it bluntly in A Short History of Finland, “Alcoholism is a
scourge which affects Finland and the other Scandinavian states to a greater extent than may
be the case in other developed countries.’’®®® In a study on the behaviour of alcoholics in
Finland, Salme Ahlstrom-Laakso stated that “the prominent part played by weekend
drinking...may be regarded as a reflection of the native Finnish drinking culture. A very large
proportion of the drinking occasions of normal alcohol users is concentrated on weekends,
Saturdays in particular.’’®®’’
®®" Aaltio, 67. ®®® For a detailed history of the beginnings of these congregations in the Thunder Bay area, refer to Kouhi, “Finnish Immigrants in Thunder Bay: 1876-1914,” 39-52. ®®® Singleton, 172. ®®® Salme Ahlstrom-Laakso, Drinking Habits Among Aicohoiics, The Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies, Volume 21, Aurasen Kirjapaino, Helsinki, 1975,113.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75 Within the Finnish-Canadian community, the Finnish problem with alcohol was
exacerbated and it was freely admitted that it “unleashed the worst in their makeup.”®®® In Nelma
Sillanpaa’s Under the Northern Lights: My Memories of Life In the Finnish Community of
Northern Ontario, she admits to her father’s alcoholism which prompts editor Edward Laine to
explain to the reader that “if alcoholism was a severe problem in Finland, it was made worse for
the Finnish immigrants here (Canada) due the harsh conditions and sense of alienation that
they often experienced.”®®® Since much of the use and abuse of alcohol by the Finns was done
within the public eye, many immigrants felt something should be done about it. Thus, the
consumption of alcohol was seen as something which the community could attempt to rectify
together.
In Port Arthur, in 1902, Finnish immigrants established the Uusi Yritys (The New
Attempt Temperance Society) which set up many activities for the immigrants. There was a
youth group, a speaker’s club, a women’s committee, and a drama club, along with athletic
events and dances. All of these activities were geared to show the immigrant that alcohol did
not have to have a place in their everyday lives. “It [also] provided a context for self-expression
and socially useful activity to a group of people committed neither to a church nor to a political
movement.”®®® Although the Society itself shut down, the activities which it ran were maintained
through the decades by other organizations such as the Finlandia Club of Port Arthur,
Kaievaian Ritarit, [Knights of the Kalevala], Naiset Ainikin Tupa [Ladies of Kalevala], etc.,
creating the long lasting impact seen even during the third wave of immigration.
The co-operative movement spurred the creation of many organizations, some of which
are still in business today, but not operated with the same idea. In Thunder Bay, there were a
few co-operative stores and one co-operative restaurant, which were operated with the idea of
®®® Kolehmainen, 20. ®®® Nelma Sillanpaa, Under the Northern Lights: My Memories of Life in the Finnish Community of Northern Ontario, 32 as cited in Lindstrom, “Ethnicity,” 39. ®®° Metsaranta, ed.. Project Bay Street, 57.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 6 offering profits to all members. One by one, these stores and the restaurant were taken over
and run as private enterprises, but the Finnish Co-op store on the corner of Bay and Secord
Streets still bore the original name until it closed its doors in 2002.
The Finnish language press has opened up an avenue for the immigrants to express
their ideas and learn about the current news of the world. Many of the papers were started as
part of the labour organizations, and used as a means of propagandizing their beliefs and
opinions. The Finnish language press as a whole has grown to include eight papers, some
consisting of a small portion of English press as well. In an article published in 1967, Oiva
Saarinen stated that there were two which appeared three times a week, two appeared weekly,
one appeared bi-weekly, and three appeared monthly.®®’ One of the weekly papers, the
Canadan Uutiset was established in Port Arthur in November 1915 and is still Thunder Bay’s
contribution to the Finnish language press.®®® These papers are a vital way for many of the older
Finnish immigrants to keep in touch with happenings in their areas, across Canada, and even in
Finland. For some of these elders, English is still a foreign language when written and they feel
much more comfortable with the written Finn used in these papers.®®® Finnish immigrants used
these organizations and the papers as a way to keep their traditions alive and their
“Finnishness” intact.
In Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Oiva Saarinen declared that “one of the most
enduring traits associated with the Finns in Canada was their passion for amateur sport.”®®" The
Finns in the Thunder Bay region are no exception. During the second wave of immigration,
many sports clubs and teams were organized within the community.®®® The organizational
®®’ Saarinen, "Finnish Settlement in Canada,” 119. ®®® For more information on the Canadan Uutiset, refer to Arja Pilli, “The Origins of Canadan Uutiset," Poiyphonyd, no,2 (1987): 39-42, and for more information on the Finnish language press in Canada, refer to Arja Pilli, The Finnish Language Press in Canada, 1901-1939, Migration Studies C6 (Turku, 1982). ®®® Many of these older immigrants ventured to Canada in their adult lives and were not able to gain much instruction in the written English language, or perhaps even spoken English. These Finns feel more comfortable writing and conversing in their native tongue. ®®" Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Piace, 221. ®®® See Appendix 14 for athletic clubs found in the region.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77 aspect of these teams was left to others during the third wave, as more Thunder Bay
multicultural organizations sprang up and the Finns decided to join rather than organize. There
are a few exceptions to this, however, as seen in the Port Arthur Isku Athletic Club (Isku AQ.
This athletic club was affiliated with the Finnish-Canadian Amateur Sports Federation and was
involved with sports and activities such as gymnastics, track and field, cross country skiing, ski
jumping, wrestling, theatre, and music. Isku AC remained on the scene until the spring of 1985,
when the hall was sold.®®®
One can find Finn names in local hockey, baseball, ringette, and gymnastic clubs. One
sport which still retains close ethnic ties with the Finns is cross-country skiing. Within the
Thunder Bay region, there are two areas with ski trails developed and owned by Finns. The
Reipas Sports Club {Urheiluseura Reipas) holds the Tapiola Invitational ski race on an annual
basis and also helps out with the other races held around the city. “Lappe”, as it is known to all
its members, holds many races which have local, provincial, national, and international
participants. Its owner, Reijo Fuiras, saw a need in the Finnish community for a recreational ski
area that could cater to the more serious racers as well as to the beginner skier. With areas
such as Lappe and Tapiola (Reipas), along with the other ski areas in Thunder Bay (Kamview,
Sibley, Big Thunder Sports Park (now defunct) and others), there have been many cross
country skiers with roots in the Finnish-Canadian community.®®^
In more recent times, the Finnish community has offered its population more
opportunities to meet other Finnish immigrants, to revive the traditions and stay in touch with
their ethnicity. There have been annual Finnish-Canadian Grand Festivals (Kanadan
Suomalaisten Suurjuhlatf^ held in various cities and towns each summer. The Finnish-
®®® Jim Tester, ed.. Sports Pioneers: A History of the Finnish-Canadian Amateur Sports Federation, 1906- 1986, (Sudbury. Alerts AC Historical Committee, 1986), 61. ®®® See Appendix 15. ®®® Prior to 1959, this festival was called the Finnish Canadian Song, Sports and Co-operatives Festival (Canadan Suomalaisten Laulu-Urheilu-ja Osuustoimintajuhlaf). Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Piace, 230.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 8 Canadian Grand Festival allows Finnish-Canadians to learn more about their heritage and
traditions as well as non-Finns who wish to learn more about the culture of Finnish-North
Americans. In the United States, these festivals are called FinnFest and are run on the same
principles as the Canadian festivals. One such tradition people can learn of at these festivals is
that of St. Urho, a symbol which was meant to unite Finnish-Americans and make them proud
of their heritage. A psychology professor from Minnesota created this symbol in the 1950’s,
from the idea of Ireland’s St. Patrick, intending to evoke some pride about Finnish culture and
language. This legend created St. Urho as the patron saint of Finnish-Americans and eventualiy
evolved into community celebrations which attracted attention to the Finnish-North American
culture.®®® St. Urho’s Day is currently celebrated on the 16'” of March in many of the Finnish
communities in North America. However, the St. Urho legend is not one shared by the Finns in
Finland. The Finnish-North American culture has digressed from the Finnish culture through the
integration of the immigrants into North American society.
On a more scholarly note, there are also forums which have been held celebrating the
research undertaken on the Finnish-Canadian and Finnish-American culture.®"® These forums,
started in 1974, are called Finn Forums and are held in conjunction with many schoiariy
institutions. Finn Forum i, held in Duluth, Minnesota was sponsored by the Immigration History
Research Centre and focussed on the Finnish culture in the Great Lakes region. The second
forum was held in Toronto, Ontario in 1979 in conjunction with the Multicultural History Society
®®® Yvonne Hiipakka Lockwood, “Immigrant to Ethnic; Symbols of Identity Among Finnish-Americans,” Folklife Annua/ (1986): 92-107. ®"° The papers presented at the forums are published together in order to create a record of the research. They are: Michael G. Kami, Matti E. Kaups, and Douglas J. Oliila, Jr., eds..The Finnish Experience in the Western Great Lakes Region: New Perspectives, Migration Studies C3 (Vammala: Institute for Migration in cooperation with the Immigration History Research Centre, University of Minnesota, 1975); Michael G. Kami, ed., Finnish Diaspora I: Canada, South America, Australia and Sweden, and Diaspora II: United States (Toronto: The Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1981); and Michael G. Kami, Olavi Koivukangas, and Edward W. Laine, eds., Finns in North America: Proceedings of Finn Forum III, 5-8 September 1984, Turku, Finland (Turku; Institute of Migration, 1988), and “Melting into Great Waters- Papers from Finn Forum V,” Journal of Finnish Studies (Special Issue) 1:3 (December 1997); Olavi Koivukangas, ed.. Entering Muiticuituraiism: Finnish Experience Abroad (Turku: Institute of Migration, 2002).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 of Ontario and looked at the issue of emigration and immigration of Finns to Canada, the United
States, Sweden, South America and Australia and was appropriately called ‘Finnish Diaspora’.
The Institute of Migration {Siirtolaisuusinstituutti) in Turku, Finland held Finn Forum III in 1984,
which focussed on the experiences of the Finnish immigrants in North America. In 1991, the
Immigration History Research Centre once again played host to the Finn Forums in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. This forum, Finn Forum IV, looked at the making of the Finnish
communities in North America. Another recent Forum, held in May 1996 in the city of Sudbury,
Ontario, focussed on the prospects and challenges which lie ahead for Finnish Canadian
researchers. The most recent, Finn Forum VI, was held in Jyvaskyla, Finland, in 2001. Its
theme was Finland embracing muiticuituraiism and it focussed on how the Finnish immigrant
experience abroad could help present-day Finland to change more gracefully into a multicultural
and multilingual society. Researchers looked at how those Finnish immigrant experiences could
be used to pave the way for the close to 100,000 immigrants currently residing in Finland.
These forums have inspired researchers, especially those of Finnish heritage, to take a better
look at Finnish immigrant communities.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter Six
Conclusion
Since 1641, with the arrival of the first Finnish immigrants in North America, until the
present, thousands more have followed. These immigrants ventured to all parts of North
America, Including the Thunder Bay region. By 1981, the Thunder Bay District was home to
roughly 7500 Finnish immigrants and their descendants. In the Canada Census of 2001, 4 660
respondents claimed to be of single Finnish origin; 8 165 claimed to be of multiple ethnic
backgrounds, Finnish included. A total of 12 825 respondents in the Thunder Bay District thus
asserted that they were of Finnish ethnic origin. These statistics make the region home to
approximately 11 % of the total Finnish Canadian population and roughly 20% to the total
Finnish population within Ontario.
The majority of these immigrants came to Canada, and Thunder Bay, in the three main
waves. The first wave occurred from 1870 to 1914, ending with the start of the First World War.
With the end of the war in 1918, immigration slowly increased again, peaking in 1924 when
6132 Finns immigrated to Canada. This second wave lasted until the outbreak of the Great
Depression in the 1930s. From 1930 to 1931, the number of immigrants went from 2811 to 136,
showing the end of the second wave. During the Great Depression and throughout the Second
World War, numbers stayed low. Then in 1951, after the Canadian government repealed the
prohibition of enemy nationals, the number of immigrants rose again.
Each of these three waves had similarities and differences. One of the most obvious
difference is the number of immigrants involved in each wave. The first wave comprised of
roughly 20 000 Finns. Almost doubling that number, the second wave’s statistics show that in
the 12 years between the First World War and the Great Depression, there were approximately
37 000 Finns migrating to Canada from Finland. The third wave was the smallest wave by far.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 1 Perhaps owing to the more positive economy in Finland, the third wave only involved just under
17 000 individuals.
Another difference is the economic situation of the immigrants. The job sector entered
into Canada has changed for each wave. Although forestry, domestic service, and
entrepreneurship were common links throughout each of the waves, the increase in ‘white-
collared’ fields marked the third wave as different from the other two. Also, the tendency for the
immigrants to have a higher level of education increased throughout the waves. By the third
wave, most immigrants had finished high school and pushed their children to continue on
further in their own schooling, into college and university.
One of the similarities of the waves was the fact that the immigrants all chose the same
geographical areas for the same types of reasons, even though the numbers differed. In the
first wave, many Finns found their way to the Thunder Bay region, aided mainly by the
construction of the CPR. During the second wave, chain migration came into effect and brought
new Finnish immigrants to the region. Another pull factor during the second wave was the
booming forest industry. Again, chain migration and forestry employment were the main factors.
For all three waves, the settlement in the area of Thunder Bay increased and in the 1961
Canada Census, 21% of the population of Canadian Finns were residing in the region. The next
highest percentage of Canadian Finns was found in the Sudbury District, with 12.5%.
Another similarity that exists within the framework for all three of the waves is the
situation in the home country. Life in Finland during the three waves was tumultuous and
chaotic. During the first wave, the economic and political situations in Finland were questionable
in their outcomes. The push for independence had a high cost for those Finns who supported
the Communist cause. Many of these Finns decided to immigrate to Canada in order to get
away from the White Guard. The rest of the wave was made up of Finns who did not want to
take part in the dispute. In the second wave, the political situation was again tense. The
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 2 economic situation can also be described as tense, with the heavy war costs being placed on
the population through taxes. Some Finns sought refuge from the taxes in immigration to
Canada. In the third wave, the economic situation was thrown in chaos due to the high war
reparation payments. Again, the flow of immigration continued until the economic turmoil
subsided and the people felt more confident in the Finnish economy.
The future of immigration from Finland to Canada is one of smaller potential. In the
1990s, Finland joined the European Union and its economy has boomed. This association is
seen as aiding Finnish political and economic security, which can indirectly lead to less
emigration out of Finland.®"’ As a result, Finns who have relatives in Canada are not interested
in immigrating to bring the family together. Also, with technological advancements in industry,
there are no longer the number of unskilled jobs there once were, which creates less of an
economic pull factor for the Finnish population to leave their homeland; large-scale labour
migration from Finland for economic reasons is unlikely.®"® It is therefore highly likely that future
Finnish emigration will virtually end.
Olavi Koivukangas points out that future research into Finnish-North American culture
should focus on integration, settlement, and social and cultural activities after the immigrants
were settled into the new country.®"® Many of the second and third generation Finns are now
studying their ethnic background to try to understand what motivated their families and friends
to immigrate and how these Finnish immigrants learned to live in tune with Canadian society
without losing their heritage. Many Finnish immigrants have tried to keep their children and
grandchildren interested in their heritage, to keep old traditions and ideas alive. As Chris Laws
has written, “It’s definitely important for children to be aware of their heritage because so many
®"’ Sherwood 8. Cordier, “Finnish Security in the Post Cold War Era,” Journal of Finnish Studies 2:1 (April 1998), 24. ®"® Korkiasaari and Soderling, “Finnish Emigration and Immigration after World War II.” ®"® Olavi Koivukangas, “Challenges,” 51.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 peop le are unaware of their ancestry.”®""
The Finnish immigrants’ integration into Canadian society can be seen through the
following indicators; permanent settlement, political involvement, English language skill
acquisition, social affiliations, and church affiliations.®"® Further research can and should be
undertaken by third and fourth generation Finnish-Canadians in this area. The integration of the
Finns during their lives in Canada is something that seems to interest many of the descendants
and is something which can be pursued further.
In the United States, there has also been a push by second and third generation
immigrants to investigate their ancestry, because they feel there is something missing from
their lives. One of these groups is the Finnish Americans, who are researching their history in
record numbers. This, in turn, is bringing out a desire from Finnish Canadians to question their
own adaptation and assimilation into Canadian culture.
The second generation [Finn]...whose family has not been a part of the community very soon loses any consciousness in his day-to-day life of his national origin... for the third generation, the [Finnish] experience will be even more submerged, yet not unlikely it too may be brought to the surface by some surrounding activity, like writing about (the) [Finnish] community, or making the initial attempts at translating a [Finnish] newspaper, or going to [Finland] to look for the past.®"®
This quote, adapted from a history of Swedes in Vancouver, can also be applied to the feelings
of the Finnish community in Thunder Bay. Without more interest being taken by second and
third generation Finnish-Canadians, Finnish culture could be almost forgotten, which would be a
loss to the community. The Finnish culture presents Canada, and particularly the Thunder Bay
area, with a more diverse society in which to live and grow.
®"" Chris Laws, “Re-defining the Finnish identity," Thunder Bay Magazine 10, no.2 (April/May 1992), 8. ®"® John Potestio, In Search of a Better Life: Emigration to Thunder Bay from a Smail Town in Calabria (Thunder Bay: The Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, Inc., 2000), Chapter Eleven. ®"® Irene Howard, Vancouver’s Svenskar.A History of the Swedish Community Vancouverin (Vancouver: Vancouver Historical Society, 1970) as cited in Roinila, 33. Square brackets are my own.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 APPENDIX 1 Immigration to Canada of Peopie of Finnish Origin or Birth, 1900-1977
Year Persons Year Persons Year Persons
1900-01 682 1926 4811 1952 2 308
1901-02 1 292 1927 5167 1953 1 252
1902-03 1 734 1928 3 758 1954 717
1903-04 845 1929 4 712 1955 652
1904-05 1 323 1930 2811 1956 1 128
1905-06 1 103 1931 136 1957 2 884
1906-07 1 049 1932 62 1958 1 296
1907-08 1 212 1933 67 1959 944
1909 1 348 1934 79 1960 1 047
1910 2 262 1935 64 1961 381
1911 1 637 1936 61 1962 385
1912 2 135 1937 94 1963 325
1913 3 508 1938 81 1964 476
1914 637 1939 82 1965 656
1915 91 1940 32 1966 696
1916 276 1941 20 1967 942
1917 129 1942 21 1968 819
1918 15 1943 18 1969 772
1919 25 1944 8 1970 694
1920 1 198 1945 26 1971 452
1921 460 1946 56 1972 311
1922 654 1947 81 1973 365
1923 6 019 1948 227 1974 362
1924 6 123 1949 267 1975 308
1925 1 561 1950 504 1976 266
1951 4158 1977 187 Note; Figures prior to 1918 are not accurate as many of the Finnish immigrants were classified as either Swedish or Russian. Source: Lindstrom-Best, “Finns in Canada,” Polyphony: Finns in Ontario 3,no. 2 (Fall 1981): originally taken from Statistics Canada.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. lO 00 A P P E N D IX 2 Distribution of Finns in Canada (1961)
. Repnisents 100 Finns
• Reprssents 1000 Finns CO 'x ._ |~ ] Rural/Resource Areas CD Q.
^ ^ J\ "O CD V ) 2 Q. C g "G 3 r 'v X ' "O 2 Q. ^r^^ylvin Saikatoon ’ ■ . L»»«l S’ • 2
. s R o c a ' v ^ ' . _ . c-'s^n r: ■c i i» Vancouver L.mtrtg. ^ ONTARIO A ■■ • R.,-™ ^ VWnnipe^ \ ê t i K 's.„, '--A A j^«^3~^''Toronlo f
UNITED STATES 1 8 CD c ;
CO Source: Statistics Canada, Census of Canada, 1961 as cited by Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 22. CD Q.
"O 83 "O 2 Q. CD Q1 8 6 APPENDIX 3 Number of First and Second Generation Finns In Canada, 1901-1981
Year Persons
1901 2 502
1911 15 499
1921 21 494
1931 43 585
1941 41 683
1951 43 745
1961 59 436
1971 59 215
1981 52 320
Source: Jouni Korkiasaari, Suomalaiset maailmalla. Suomen siirtolaisuus ja ulkosuomaialset entisa joista tâhân pâivâân. Turku, 1989, as cited in Mari Niemi, 79.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. N 00
APPENDIX 4 Finnish Population in Canada and Six Provinces
1931 % 1941 % 1951 % 1961 % 1971 % 1981 % (/> Canada 43 885 41 683 43 745 59 436 59 215 52 315 CD Q. Alberta 3 318 7.56 3 452 8.28 2 958 6.76 3 662 6.16 3 590 6.06 4 135 7.9 3 O British Columbia 6 858 15.63 6 332 15.19 6 790 15.52 10 037 16.89 11 510 19.44 10810 20.66 "O CD Manitoba 1 013 2.31 808 1.94 821 1.88 1 070 1.80 1 450 2.45 1 060 2.03
Ontario 27 137 61.84 26 827 64.36 29 327 67.04 39 906 67.14 38 515 65.04 33 395 63.83 2 Q. C Q uebec 2 973 6.77 2 043 4.90 1 600 3.66 2 277 3.83 1 865 3.15 1 140 2.18 g "G "O3 Saskatchewan 2 313 5.27 1 940 4.65 1 805 4.13 1 891 3.18 1 730 2.92 1 275 2.40 2 Q. Note: Percentage of the Canadian Finnish population residing within the province. 2 Source: Statistics Canada, Censuses of Canada (1931-1981). ■c
CD C I £ g È 8 gCD O c g '(/)(/>
CD Q.
"O 8 "O3 2 Q. Q1CD 00 CO APPENDIX 5 Finnish Population in Major Cities and Relevant Ontario Districts
1931 % 1941 % 1951 % 1961 % 1971 % 1981 %
Canada 43 885 41 683 43 745 59 436 59 215 52 315 (/>(/)
Calgary 110 0.25 126 0.30 216 0.49 510 0.86 920 1.55 1 110 2.12 CD Q. Edmonton 68 0.15 107 0.26 220 0.50 547 0.92 715 1.21 980 1.87
Montreal 1 545 3.52 886 2.13 723 1.65 834 1.40 455 0.77 265 0.51 "O CD Sault Ste. Marie 1 110 2.53 851 2.04 1 057 2.42 1 301 2.19 2 190 3.70 1 970 3.77 2 Sudbury 1 374 3.13 1 241 2.98 1 478 3.38 2 994 5.04 2 750 4.64 3 000 5.73 Q. C g Thunder Bay 4 247 9.68 3 824 9.17 4 653 10.64 7 281 12.25 8 350 14.10 6 880 13.15 £3 "O 2 Toronto 3 453 7.87 2 809 6.74 2 880 6.58 3 944 6.64 2 730 4.61 1660 3.17 Q. 2 Vancouver 1 843 4.20 1 454 3.49 1 583 3.62 2 405 4.05 2 375 4.01 1 500 2.87 ■c Algoma District 2 091 4.76 1 995 4.79 2 014 4.60 3 089 5.20 2 805 4.74 2 010 3.84
4 633 10.56 4 704 11.29 5411 12.37 7 446 CD Sudbury District 12.53 7 095 11.98 4 490 8.58 C I Thunder Bay District 9 000 20.51 9 420 22.60 9 922 22.68 12 607 21.21 11 105 18.75 7 505 14.35 £ Note; Percentage of the Canadian Finnish population residing within the cities and districts. g Source: Statistics Canada, Censuses of Canada (1931-1981). È 8
O c g '(/)(/>
CD Q.
"O 83 "O 2 Q. Q1CD 05 CO APPENDIX 6 Finnish Population in Ontario and Relevant Cities and Districts
1931 % 1941 % 1951 % 1961 % 1971 % 1981 %
Ontario 27 137 26 827 29 327 39 906 38 515 33 395 g '(/) 2 091 7.71 2 014 6.02 Algoma District 1 995 7.44 6.87 3 089 7.74 2 805 7.28 2 010 i CD Q. Sault Ste. Marie 1 110 4.09 851 3.17 1 057 3.60 1 301 3.26 2 190 5.69 1 970 5.90
Sudbury District 4 633 17.07 4 704 17.53 5411 18.45 7 446 18.66 7 095 18.42 4 490 13.45 "O Sudbury . 1 374 5.06 1 241 4.63 1 478 5.04 2 994 7.50 2 750 7.14 3 000 8.98 CD
Thunder Bay District 9 000 33.17 9 420 35.11 9 922 33.83 12 607 31.59 11 105 28.83 7 505 22.47 2 Q. C Thunder Bay 4 247 15.65 3 824 14.25 4 653 15.87 7 281 18.25 8 350 21.68 6 880 20.60 g £3 Toronto 3 453 12.72 2 809 10.47 2 880 9.82 3 944 9.88 2 730 7.09 1 660 4.97 "O 2 Note: Percentage of the Ontario Finnish population in the relevant cities and districts. Q. Source: Statistics Canada, Censuses of Canada (1931-1981). 2 ■c
(D C I £ g È 8 gCD O C g CO CO
CD Q.
"O 83 "O 2 Q. CD q: 90 APPENDIX 7 Population of Finnish Origin In Canada by province In 1986
Province Single Origins Multiple Origins Total
Ontario 26 530 27 265 53 795
British Columbia 8 540 12 325 20 865
Alberta 2 625 6 015 8 640
Saskatchewan 1 075 1 805 2 880
Manitoba 720 1 550 2 270
Quebec 810 905 1 715
Nova Scotia 95 335 430
New Brunswick 90 310 400
Yukon Territory 25 85 110
Newfoundland 10 95 105
North West 30 55 85 Territories
Prince Edward 10 30 40 Island
Total 40 560 50 775 91 335 Note; Single origins = Finnish origins only. Multiple origins including Finnish, but not only. Source: Canada Census, 1986.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 APPENDIX 8 Finnish Population by Census Metropolitan Area (1996)
CMA Single Origin Multiple Origins Total
Toronto 6 070 8 060 14135
Thunder Bay 4 840 7 490 12 340
Vancouver 3 825 7 820 11 645
Sudbury 2 450 4115 6 560
Calgary 610 2 810 3 420
Edmonton 495 2 385 2 885
Ottawa-Hull 545 2 050 2 595
Victoria 530 1 425 1 960
Winnipeg 385 1 395 1 780
Montreal 490 925 1 415
Hamilton 275 1 030 1 305
London 295 850 1 140
St. Catherines/Niagara 245 835 1 080
Kitchener 230 840 1 070
Oshawa 180 785 960
Windsor 245 550 800
Saskatoon 165 600 770
Regina 85 500 595
Halifax 80 345 425
St. John 25 95 120
St. John’s 20 60 80
Quebec City 10 10 20
Source: Saarinen, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 24. Originally taken from the Canada Census, 1996.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92 APPENDIX 9 Canadian Government Regulations of Immigration Affecting Finnish Immigrants
P.O. 9443 - December 12,1941 (approx.) - Whereas by reason of the existence of a state of war with Roumania, Hungary and Finland, it has become necessary to make provisions for the special position of persons of Roumanian, Hungarian and Finnish nationality; and whereas it is recognized that most persons of Roumanian, Hungarian or Finnish nationality residing in Canada are law abiding, well disposed and loyal inhabitants of this country, contributing to its war effort and disavowing any allegiance to the Maxi controlled puppet governments of their countries of origin; and whereas it is expedient that such persons should not be generally subjected to the Defence of Canada Regulations relating to enemy aliens. Now, therefore. His Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice and under the authority of the War Measures Act, chapter 206 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927, is pleased to amend the Defence of Canada Regulations (Consolidation) 1941, and they are hereby amended by inserting the following after Regulation 26B, as Regulation 26C; (1) The Registrar General may, on the personal application to a Registrar of any Roumanian, Hungarian or Finnish nationality, resident in Canada, issue a certificate of exemption, exempting such persons from the operation of Refulation 24, 25, and 26 of these Regulations and may, at his absolute discretion, at any time, without previous notice, cancel any certificate issued.
P.C. 1373 - 1941 - deemed Finland an enemy nation fighting against Russia, Canada’s new ally. The nationals of Finland became inadmissible to Canada until 1947, when the order was rescinded.^'*®
P.C. 1606 - March 28,1950 - prohibited the landing of enemy aliens, with the exception of people who satisfy the Minister that they were opposed to an enemy government; close relatives and the prospective husband or wife of a legal resident in Canada; an immigrant of German ethnic origin who is a displaced person who was nota German national on September 1,1939.®"®
P.C. 3689 - July 31,1951 - revoked the prohibition of enemy nationals. 250
P.C. 785 - May 24,1956 - defines the admissible classes of immigrants as follows: 20 (b) a person who is a citizen by birth or by naturalization of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, or Switzerland or who is a refugee from a country in Europe, if such person undertakes to come to Canada for placement under the auspices of the Department or, if the Department has given its approval thereto, for establishment in a business, trade, or profession or in agriculture.®®’
®"^ Varpu Lindstrom, From Heroes to Enemies: Finns in Canada, 7937-1947(Beaverton, ON: Aspasia Books, 2000), 147. ®"® Lindstrom-Best, “The Impact of Canadian Immigration Policy,” 11. ®"® Green, 233. ®®“ ibid., 233. ®®’ Ibid., 237.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 APPENDIX 10 Finnish-Canadian immigrant Questionnaire
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR FINNISH-CANADIANS WHO IMMIGRATED AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR.
Hello! Hell My name Is Lana Puumala and I am a graduate history student at Lakehead University. I am researching the Finnish immigrant population of Thunder Bay and area after the Second World War, from 1950 until the present. This questionnaire will be helpful for understanding the various personal reasons for moving to Canada, especially the Thunder Bay region. These questionnaires will be confidential and if desired, no names are necessary. I am thanking you in advance for your cooperation and time. Please return in the addressed stamped envelope attached as soon as possible. Thank you! Kiitos!
1. When did you immigrate to Canada? Milioin muutitte kanadaan?
2. How old were you at this time? Minka ikâinen oiit kuin muutitte?
3. Did you follow family or friends in emigration? Seurasitteko te perheen jasenta tai ystâvàà?
4. Did you immigrate with your family? Muutitteko perheen mukana?
5. When did your family immigrate to Canada? Milioin sinun perhe muutti kanadaan?
6. Are you the oldest sibling in the family? Oletko sina vanhin jasen teidàn perheessa?
7. Where did you settle when first arriving in Canada? Mihkâ asetuitte asumaan ensin muuton jalkeen?
8. When did you come to the Thunder Bay area? Milioin muutitte Thunder Bayn aluelle?
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94 9. Where did you settle in the Thunder Bay area? Mihkà asetuitte asumaan Thunder Bayn aluelle?
10. Why did you leave Finland? Miksi làhditte suomesta?
11. Was your family farm owners or dwellers in Finland? Oliko teidàn perhe maan omistaja tai asuitteko maalla suomessa?
12. Why did you choose Canada? Minka takia valisit kanadaan?
13. Why did you choose the Thunder Bay area? Minka takia valisit Thunder Bayn alueen?
14. Did you plan to only stay for a short time or for the long term? Oliko tarkoitus olla vain vahan aikaa tai oliko muutos pitemalle ajalle?
15. Have you gone back to Finland to live or to visit? Oletko vieraillu tai asunu suomessa muuton jalkeen?
16. Do you feel comfortable now with your life in Canada? Oletko tyytyvainen sinun elâmààn kanadassa?
Thank you for taking the time to fill out this questionnaire. I greatly appreciate it. Kiitos paljoni
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95 APPENDIX 11 Finnish Businesses In Thunder Bay, circa 1980
Anja’s Beauty Salon Lehto Printers A-One Filter and Supply McCormick Electric Bay Jewellers MidWest Auto & Hardware Central Canada Equipment Oikonen’s Taxi Country Good Meats & Deli Old Country Meat & Cheese Current River Bakery Osuuspankki [Co-operative Bank] Dan’s Studio Parkkari Trucking Double J. Eavestroughing Wholesale People’s Co-op Ellen’s Ladies Wear Rex-Taxi Excel Sheet Metal Ltd. Rinne Auto Body Exterior Finishing Ltd. Saasto’s Men’s Wear Fennica Safari Imports Finnport Scandinavian Delicatessen Gore Motors Star TV Hazelwood Enterprises Suomalainen Kirjakauppa [Finnish Book Hoito Ravintola [Restaurant] Store] J.K. Auto Repairs Superior Motors Lakehead Ltd. Kangas Sauna Super Siding Kestitupa [Cafeteria] Thunder Bay Concrete Kivelâ Bakery Thunder Bay Restaurant Knit N Stitch Thunder Bay Welding & Supplies Ltd. Korte Trucking Top Buckle Ski Shop Karkkaisen Kalasavustamo [Fish Smokery] Top Notch Roofing Lakehead Builders Unitized Manufacturing Ltd. Lakehead Travel Wanson Lumber Lauri’s Home Hardware Watch Service Lasvel Shoes Weave & Wear
Source; TBFCHS Collection, MG 8, Series 0, Box 2, Folder 4, Item 1, Canadan Uutiset, 25, kesakuuta. 1980, #26, “Tutustu Thunder Bayhin.”
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96 APPENDIX 12 Selected Finnish Enterprises and Professions in the Thunder Bay Area, circa 2002
A-One Filter and Supply Kangas Sauna Peitonen Design International Aho & Ardlng Certified Daniel E. Karvonen, Lawyer Peterson Electric Co. Limited General Accountants Kestitupa Cafeteria Dr. Rodney Puumala, Anttila Northwest Ltd. Kivela Bakery Chiropractor Korkola Design Eric Pyhtila Trucking Appliance Plus Centre Communications Pyhtila Viljo Sand & Gravel Inc. The Blueberry Amethyst Korte Trucking Rajala Electric (Canada) Ltd. Patch Dave Koski Design Romu Roofing & Contracting Central Canada Fuels Koski Excavating Saari Artesian Springs Inc. Country Good Meats & Dell R. Koski Trucking Inc. Dr. Otto Salonen, Physician Current River Bakery Laitinen Hardwood Flooring Dr. A. E. Santala, Physician Custom Hydraulics Limited Lankinen Timber Saveia Esko and Son Day Caddo Vlherjokl - Lauri’s Hardware Contracting Inc. Chartered Accountants Lehtinen Technology Services Scandinavian Delicatessen Lehto Printers Ltd. Scandinavian Home Cafe Eko Siding Contractors Lempiala Sand & Gravel Limited Shuniah Contracting Flnnews Limited Leppanen’s Store & Service Sistonen’s Corner Finnish Book Store Carl W. Maki, Appraisal Group Suomi Koti of Thunder Bay, Inc. The Finnish Update Canada (Thunder Bay) Inc. (Finnish House - an Flnnport Inc. Maki's Diesel Repair retirement housing complex) Finn-Tastlc Sauna & Gifts Martin Contracting Superior Motors (Lakehead) Finn way General Contractors Midway Cleaners & Tailors Ltd. Inc. Paul A. Niemi, Accountant Tenander Financial Services Ken Niivila Trucking Gore Motors Inc. Tenkula Apartments Niivila Timber Ltd. Tiina Haikonen, Corporate Thunder Bayn Uutiset T.K. Nupponen, Chartered Legal Assistant Thunder Country Travel Accountant Happy Homes Realty Limited Valmet Ltd. - Enerdry Seppo K. Paivalainen, Harbour Fleet & Auto Division, Canada Consulate of Finland Harri Bakery Vauthier, Paivalainen, Lawyers Dr. Raimo E. Pehkonen, Hari Enterprises Wanson Lumber Company Physician Dr. John Heinonen, Dentist Limited Aki Peitonen Creative Services Hoito Restaurant Wood-Land Tractor Inc. Dr. R. Peltoniemi, Orthodontist Katja Huitikka, Lawyer Eija Peltokangas, Lawyer Gerald Hyvarinen Trucking Jarvela Real Estate Appraisals Ltd. Source; Information taken originally from “Finnlsh-Canadian Businesses and Organisations in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada,” (Canadian Friends of Finiand(Ottawa), 14 October 2002.) Accessed 15 December 2002, available from htto://www.canadianfriendsoffinland.ca/tbbus.htm
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 APPENDIX 13 Selected Finnish Social, Political and Economic Organizations in the Thunder Bay Area, circa 2002
Amerikan Laulajati Finnish Male Singers of North Naiskuoro Orasl Finnish Ladies Choir America Saalem-Seurakunnan Bethel Lutheran Church Suomalainen Vapaaseurakunta! Finnish Free Canadian Suomi Foundation Church
Finlandia Ciubin KeZ/aayaf (Bowling) Suomen Kielen Kouiui Finnish Language School of Thunder Bay Finlandia Club of Port Arthur Thunder Bayn Kanadan-suomalainen Finnish Pentecostal Church Historiaseura/ Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society Finnish War Veterans of Thunder Bay Thunder Bayn Suomalainen Aseveiikerhol Thuner Finnish-Canadian Historical Society Bay Finnish Firearms Association
Hilldale Lutheran Church Thunder Bayn Suomalainen Kansalllsseura/ Loyal Finns of Canada Isien Usko! The Faith of Our Fathers (magazine) Thunder Bayn Suomalainen Peiimannikerhol Kalevalan Ritarit, Sampo Majo No: 511 The Thunder Bay Finnish Orchestra Musical Club Knights of the Kalevala No. 51 Urheiluseura Reipas/ Reipas Sports Club Kanadan Uutisten Keilaajat (Bowling)
Keskipohjalaisten Kerho! Central Northern Club (region of Finland)
Kiikurit Finnish Folk Dancers
Mieskuoro Otaval Male Choir OTA VA
Naiset Ainikin Tupa No:55i Ladies of Kaievala No.55 Mote: Not a complete listing of all organizations. Translations are approximate. Source: Information taken originally from “Finnish-Canadian Businesses and Organisations in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada,” (Canadian Friends of Finland(Ottawa), 14 October 2002.) Accessed 15 December 2002, available from httD://www.canadianfriendsoffinland.ca/tbbus.htm and various other sources.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98
APPENDIX 14 Finnish Canadian Athletic Clubs in the Thunder Bay Area
Place Name of Club English Translation Alppila, ON Nousu Eagles AC Rising Eagles Dog River, ON (Pohjola) Tigers AC Fort William, ON Karhu AC Bear
Intola, ON Punatahti AC Red Star Isojoki, ON (Port Arthur) Vigor AC
Kaministiqula, ON Hurja Tigers AC Fierce Tigers Kivikoski, ON Kiplnà AC Spark Lappe, ON Liekki AC Flame Nolalu, ON Ponteva AC Vigour North Branch, ON EloAC Joy Pohjola, ON Hurja AC Fierce Port Arthur, ON Isku AC Hard Blow
Tarmola, ON (Vâkevà) Tarmo AC Strong Energy Wolf Siding, ON (Suomi) Yritys AC Endeavour Source: Tester, 265-267.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99
APPENDIX 15 Finnish Canadian Skiers from the Thunder Bay Area’^^^
Ahokas, Arlene Metsaranta, Leila Ahokas, Hannu Myllymaa, Peter Ahokas, John Niemi, Sam Ahokas, Kevin Penttinen, Lauri Ahokas, Mauri Penttinen, Kaisa Ahokas, Vilho Pesonen, Esko Gronroos, Don Pesonen, Kai Inkila, Paul Pesonen, Satu Jamsa, Esa Puiras, Reijo Jamsa, Karl Puiras, Time Kaarela, Karl Jr. Puiras, Tuija Kaki, Pauli Puumala, Arvo Kirvesniemi, Katriina Puumala, Jamie Koski-Harja, Andrew Puumala, Lana Koski-Harja, Michael Puumala, Mark Leinonen, Jari Puumala, Martti Maepea, Derek Puumala, Rodney Maepea, Jill Puumala, Sandra Maepea, Jody Rautio, Martti Mannisto, Michael Seppanen, Markko Metsaranta, Juha Tikka, Tenho Metsaranta, Marc Tikka, Time Metsaranta, Riku Viitanen, Allan Widgren, Alfred
^ This is not a complete listing of all Finnish-Canadian skiers in the Thunder Bay area, so the author apologizes for any omissions. The information was gathered from various sources, both written and orai.
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